


Darkness Yielding

by thekatriarch



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant (Mostly), F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship, I have a lot of feelings about Leia, Learning to be vulnerable, Things eventually get sexy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-18 20:30:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 44
Words: 65,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20319061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekatriarch/pseuds/thekatriarch
Summary: A mostly canon-compliant retelling of the three original movies from Leia's perspective.





	1. The Cell

**Author's Note:**

> _ oh see the darkness yielding_  
_that tore the light apart_  
_come healing of the reason_  
_come healing of the heart_  
-leonard cohen  

> 
> NOTES/WARNINGS  
a) medium-explicit sex in chapters 37 & 38
> 
> b) chapters 24 & 25 are during the Jabba the Hutt story and there are some references to the possibility of sexual violence but nothing happens that you don't see happen in the film

The cell was cold. Leia had been on her way to a desert planet when she’d been captured, and her light robe, so practical for the scorching heat, did nothing to warm her now.

The cold made it hard to concentrate, but she needed to consider her next move. Cassian had always said that the key to espionage, the difference between life and death, was attention. “You have to look for your opportunities. When you find one, you use it, and then you look for the next one. That’s all it is. You keep taking chances until you run out of chances.”

“And then what?” 

“Then you hope for the best.”

“Hope?” she’d said, doubtful. “Hope isn’t a plan.”

He’d shaken his head. “The only reason we’re here is hope. Rebellions are built on hope.” 

Cassian was probably dead now, along with so many others, at Scarif. Was it possible that he’d escaped? That anyone had? Not knowing what was happening outside the cell was almost as bad as being in the cell in the first place. 

Leia had never been able to stand not knowing. That was how she’d discovered the Alliance in the first place. When her parents had suddenly become secretive and withdrawn, she had quietly investigated until she found the truth. They had wanted to protect her, probably hoping that she would never end up where she was right now. Her first real mission for the Alliance, and here she was, in a freezing prison cell on the Death Star, almost certainly awaiting her execution.

Now everything depended on a desperate gamble she'd made just as Imperial troops were boarding her ship. and there were so many things that she couldn’t know. Had the little droid even reached the surface of the planet? Was it possible that he would actually find the man she’d been sent to ask for help, and deliver her message? So many improbable things would have to happen for the mission to be successful, but all she could do now was hope. _ Rebellions are built on hope_. 

Even if the droid somehow did find Obi-Wan Kenobi, would the man be willing to bring the information to her father on Alderaan? If she could have gone to him herself, she could have convinced him. She was good at convincing people, at understanding what they needed to hear. Cassian had once told her that it was what would make her a great spy. 

She couldn’t even think about the worst case scenario. If Kenobi tried to reach her father and he was captured — or dead. He had already been under suspicion; had been for years, but even the Empire needed more than unconfirmed suspicions to arrest a senator as well loved as Bail Organa. And now they had the perfect excuse.

She had been in this cell for hours. How much longer would they make her wait? She knew they were trying to wear her out: make her weak with hunger and thirst and fear, so she wouldn’t be able to resist their questioning. 

“Questioning.” A mild word. Whatever happened would be far worse than questions. She’d been trained in how to resist what the Empire euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation,” but training was training. This would be real.

The bunk in the cell, if you could call it that, was a plain bench that protruded from the wall, made from the same cold metal as the walls and the floor and the ceiling. It was desperately uncomfortable, but Leia needed rest, so she lay down and closed her eyes. She turned her attention inward, to her breath, and eventually drifted into a light and restless sleep.

She woke because someone was coming. She felt it before she heard it, so she was sitting up and ready, or as ready as she could be. She wasn’t surprised to see Vader in the doorway. She steeled herself. Tell him nothing, she told herself. You can do this.

She had heard rumors about the mind probe, but she couldn’t have prepared for seeing it up close. You can do this, she told herself again. Tell them nothing. She told herself she didn’t even know where the rebel base was, so she couldn’t possibly tell Vader. She put the information far away, where even she couldn’t access it. She could do this. She would think about anything but what he wanted her to think about.

As soon as Vader had left the cell she sank to the floor, curling herself into a ball and screaming into her hands. She had _ felt _ Vader’s mind inside her own, felt his will trying to overpower hers. He must know beyond any doubt that she was a rebel, now. But she hadn’t given up the location of the base. She hadn’t given up the names of the Alliance leaders. She had done it.

_ This time_, a dark voice inside her promised. But “this time” wasn’t nothing. It bought some time for the Alliance, at least. Maybe they could evacuate. They had moved their primary operations base before. They could do it again, couldn’t they?

Too many maybes. She had been holding back her tears all day. She let them come, now, and then, from sheer exhaustion, fell asleep again.

The next time stormtroopers came to her cell, they bound her hands and marched her into the hallway. Her limbs were impossibly cold and stiff so she stumbled a little as they pushed her along, but she held her head high and affected as much of a royal bearing as she could. The stormtroopers, at least, seemed slightly awed by her presence; she might be a rebel, but she was still a princess, and one who had stood up to Darth Vader.

After leaving the cell block, the temperature became more bearable. The warmth felt so good after hours (days? She had long ago lost track of time) in the freezing cell that she almost wanted to cry with relief. Of course she didn’t; she wouldn’t show these Imperials any hint of her discomfort or fear if she could help it. She still had her pride, for whatever good that might do her.

They had been fools not to blindfold her. She had learned years ago the importance of memorizing terrain so she could find her way back out. A space station was no different. She counted steps and turns and committed them to memory. If she had a chance to escape her cell, however unlikely that may seem, a map of the station, however incomplete, would be invaluable. She paid attention. The stormtroopers really were fools, she thought; they even let her see them enter the passcode for the doors that required them. She memorized those, too. 

She was being taken through more and more important areas of the station. Into the heart of the command center, she realized. She was being taken to see whoever was in command. 

Shortly before they reached their destination, Vader joined them. There was something slightly different about him, almost as if he’d developed a small measure of respect for her after their hideous session with the mind probe. Good. She could find a way to use that.

When the stormtrooper opened the door to the command center, she saw at last Grand Moff Tarkin, greeting her with the cruel smile she had seen on his cadaverous face so many times before. She had only a few seconds to size him up and decide on a strategy. Whenever she’d had dealings with Tarkin before, she had played the role of a naive little girl. Someone who was no threat to him, who could be manipulated. There was no point in continuing that charade now. She raised her chin and affected a cold haughtiness.

“Governor Tarkin,” she said. “I should have known I’d find you holding Vader’s leash.” Tarkin’s face twitched slightly with surprise and annoyance, something most people wouldn’t have noticed. Push harder, she thought. If you shock him enough he might let something drop. Something you can use. “I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board.”

It was a miscalculation. Tarkin’s nasty smile grew wider. She knew what it meant: he had always suspected there was more to Leia than the image she’d shown him, and now she’d proved him right. “Princess Leia,” he said, slightly mispronouncing her name. “Before your execution, I would like you to be my guest at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational.”

Operational? she thought. He had already destroyed the Holy City on Jedha and the Empire’s own archival facility on Scarif; how much more operational could it be? “No star system will dare oppose the Empire now,” he continued with pleasure.

Tarkin was terrifying, but he didn’t understand people at all. Imperial officers, up to the Emperor himself, only understood or valued power. They had no idea what the rebellion was fighting for. She shook her head. “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”

The nasty smile never left his face. It made him look hungry, like some predatory bird about to strike. “In a way,” he mused, turning to gaze out the large window, “you have determined the choice of the planet that will be destroyed first.” She frowned slightly, following his gaze to the jeweled planet in the distance, growing steadily larger as they came closer. Her breath caught in her throat as she recognized it, and Tarkin turned back to her, triumph written across his face. “Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the rebel base, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan.” 

The panic bubbled up and out of her. “Alderaan is peaceful! We have no weapons, you can’t possibly—”

He cut her off. “You would prefer another target? A _ military _ target? Then name the system.”

Focus Leia, focus, she told herself. Panicking won’t help anything. She studied Tarkin’s face a moment, and read the horrible truth written there. No matter what she said, he had no intention of relenting. Alderaan was doomed. No, no, no, she thought, frantically. There has to be another way. She couldn’t do nothing. Those were her people, the people she had served her entire life. There had to be a way to save them. But there was nothing. She searched for another option. An opportunity. Rebellions are built on hope. What could she tell him that might convince him to spare Alderaan? She couldn’t give up the real location, but she could buy some more time, couldn’t she?

Tarkin moved closer to her, menacing. “I grow tired of asking this, so this will be the last time. _ Where _ is the rebel base?”

She hung her head. “Dantooine,” she said softly. “They’re on Dantooine.” It was a lie, but close enough to the truth that it might be enough. They _ had _ been on Dantooine, a year or so ago, and Dantooine was almost uninhabited, used primarily as a waystation for smugglers and slavers, so if they destroyed it, the loss of life would be minimal. It was a hideous calculation to have to make, to trade some lives for others, but she had to do something.

Tarkin was delighted to have broken her. “You see, Lord Vader? She can be reasonable.” Then he turned to another officer, saying, as she’d known he would, “continue with the operation. You may fire when ready.”

She could see her beautiful homeworld through the enormous window. Blue ocean, green forest, wreathed with white clouds. She wanted to scream but all that came out was the single word “What?” 

Tarkin glanced back at her. “You’re far too trusting,” he sneered. “Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration. But don’t worry; we’ll deal with your rebel friends soon enough.” 

She wanted to look away, but she made herself watch. It was all she could do.

When the planet exploded, she felt it like a physical blow to her body. She would crumple, she would die from it. She could have sworn she actually _ heard _ her mother cry out with terror and then, abruptly, silence.

She thought it would kill her, but somehow, she was still alive. Somehow, she was still standing. Tarkin gestured to the stormtroopers, who escorted her out. She moved in a daze. Back to her cell, pride forgotten. Once again she sank to the floor. Everything was gone. There had been two billion people living on Alderaan, and they were all gone. Dead. All because of her; because she had been caught.

Her father had been on his way back home when he had sent her to Tatooine. Had he been there, been with her mother? What happened on Scarif might have changed his plans; he might have gone back. If he had been on Alderaan, she could at least hope that they had died in each other’s arms. They had loved each other so deeply. She would never see them again. She would never see home again. Everyone and everything she had loved was dead, and yet, somehow, she was still alive. Why hadn’t Tarkin executed her already? What possible punishment could he have in store that was worse than this?

But for now she _ was _ alive, and that meant she had to try to _ stay _ alive, to keep fighting. For her parents; for her people; for her planet and all the other planets not yet destroyed. Since she had first become involved in the rebellion at sixteen, she had spent much of her time attempting to convince the adults around her, especially her father, that she wasn’t a child and didn’t need to be sheltered. Now, alone, she felt the weight of her inexperience dragging her toward despair.

Time passed. She dragged herself to the bunk and let herself drift into a restless sleep. She dreamed she was in the main square of Alderra, staring up at the false moon that had just appeared in the sky; and then the sky, and everything else, was on fire.


	2. The Death Star

She woke, again, because someone was coming. The door to her cell opened and a lone stormtrooper rushed through the doorway and then stopped still and said nothing. Was this it? Was this how she was going to die; not even given the dignity of an execution, but shot in her cell by a stormtrooper? But the trooper stood there and did nothing, as if he had no idea why he’d entered the cell or what he was going to do now. Maybe he’s fallen in love with you, she thought, half joking. ...But what if he had? It was a better explanation than anything else she could think of. And it could be an opportunity. Cassian had once told her, in one of his informal lessons on spycraft, that seduction was one of the most important tools in a spy’s kit.

“People, especially men, will give away a lot to a pretty face; they’ll ruin their lives for the right girl… or boy. You just have to convince them that they’re the best you’ve ever had, and they’re usually very eager to be convinced of that,” he told her, leaning in close and tilting his face down to hers, in a way she knew was calculated. Cassian always showed by example how to manipulate people, and, to her humiliation, it often worked. “You’re a beautiful girl,” he said in a soft, low voice. “You can use that.” The warm wild feeling that lived deep in her belly when she was around Cassian had flipped over once or twice, and, unconsciously, she ran the rip of her tongue over her lower lip.

Cassian had frowned slightly, shook his head, and took a step back, disappointed. “Don’t get caught in the trap yourself. You’re smarter than that. I only seduce girls and break their hearts for business. And besides,” he added, “I’m much, much too old for you.”

“You’re not _ that _ much older than me,” she had said, embarrassed and exasperated. “It’s only seven years.”

“And seven years ago, you were, what? Eleven? Seven years is a long time when you’re eighteen.”

She had known he was right; he _ was _ too old for her, and anyway, she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t fall in love again until the Empire was destroyed. But she’d protested anyway, “You know, I’m not a child.”

He’d chuckled. “The only people who ever say that are children. Listen, I’ll make you a deal. If we’re both still alive in ten years, and you haven’t been swept off your feet by some handsome prince, we’ll revisit this conversation.” Cassian was always saying things like “if we’re still alive.” 

“I’ll hold you to that,” she replied.

"Oh," he said. "I know you will.”

But that was a year ago. Here and now, in the world where Cassian was dead and Leia was trapped in a cell with a stormtrooper, she had to make another instant decision. Despite Cassian’s advice about seduction, she hadn’t had much experience with flirting. Princesses don’t have many opportunities, and princesses who are senators have even fewer. She propped herself up on her elbow in what she hoped was a sultry pose and said the first thing that came to mind, which was the absurd statement, “aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?”

The trooper cocked his head and blurted out, “what?” in a voice so astonished and youthful that she felt a tiny surge of hope that this ridiculous plan might actually work. “Oh!” he gasped. “The uniform!” He pulled his helmet off, revealing a young man about her own age, with shaggy, sand-colored hair. She sat up. Whoever this kid was, he was no stormtrooper. The words tumbled out of him in a stream almost too quick to follow. “I’m Luke Skywalker, I’m here to rescue you!”

“You’re _ who_?” The name meant nothing, and she was certain she’d never seen him before, but she had a peculiar feeling that he was someone she knew very well, someone that she was seeing again after many years apart. 

“I’m here to rescue you,” he said again. “I’ve got your R2 unit. I’m here with Ben Kenobi!”

“Ben Kenobi? Where is he?” she leapt to her feet. Cassian would have warned her that this could be a trap, and Tarkin certainly wasn’t above that kind of cruel game, but out of the cell was better than inside the cell, whatever happened next, and it was hard to imagine that the wide eyed youth in the ill-fitting stormtrooper uniform was an Imperial agent.

From further down the cell block, she heard blaster fire and shouting. Moments later, an enormous Wookiee and another man in a stormtrooper uniform with no helmet came crashing towards them, searching for an exit. “Can’t get out that way,” the other man said. He was older than her, but not nearly old enough to be Kenobi, who was at least her father’s age. The boy, Luke, had said he was here with _ Ben _ Kenobi, not Obi-Wan; could this man be the old man’s son? There was no time to think it through; they were blocked in, being fired upon by the real stormtroopers, and her “rescuers” didn’t seem to have a backup plan. “Looks like you managed to cut off our only escape route,” she snapped, and the older man asked her if she’d prefer to stay in her cell, with the most sarcastic “Your Highness,” that she’d ever heard. She disliked him immediately.

Chances of escape seemed somewhere between slim and none; Luke was on the commlink frantically shouting to someone about whether there was another way out. The other man and the Wookiee kept firing down the hallway. Whoever they were, they couldn’t be Alliance; even if the Alliance had tried to mount a rescue, which would have been an impossibly stupid risk after the heavy losses they’d taken at Scarif, they certainly wouldn’t have gone in with no exit strategy. 

Anger bubbled up in her. “This is some rescue,” she shouted over the noise. “When you came in here, didn’t you have a plan for getting out?”

Ben Kenobi, if that’s who he was, yelled back at her “He’s the brains, sweetheart,” and more anger flared up inside her. “Sweetheart?” Who did this man think he was? But now wasn’t the time. She had trained for moments like this. Look around, Leia, she told herself. There’s got to be something you’re not seeing.

There was. An absolutely reckless, foolish, almost-no-hope-of-actually-working idea popped into her head, and before she had a chance to second guess herself, she snatched the blaster out of Luke’s hands and fired at the grating that covered the garbage chute, destroying it. Tossing the weapon back to the kid, she slid herself into the chute.

Partway down the chute she at last listened to the part of her that was screaming that this was an unbelievably bad idea. She had no idea where the chute led. It might lead to an incinerator. It could lead to an airlock that would open and let her drift out into space to suffocate.

Instead, she dropped into thick, sludgy water heaped with garbage, and an indescribably bad odor. But she was alive, and out of her cell. She experienced a brief moment of feeling flush with her success, before the reality of the new danger sank in. The Wookiee landed a moment later and let out a wail. She had only met Wookiees a few times in her work in the Senate and her grasp of their language was almost nonexistent, but his distress was evident. She shared it. His companions — her companions, now, she supposed — arrived soon afterward. This isn’t so bad, she thought. We can get out of here.

Getting out of what turned out to be a magnetically sealed trash compactor with some kind of enormous, killer creature living inside it was significantly more complicated than she had hoped. They had almost died — again — but they were free. For a value of “free” that included still being on the Death Star. In the maintenance passage in which they emerged at last, choking and sputtering, the two men removed their stormtrooper suits. Leia shared a glance with the Wookiee, both of them envying the extra layer, with the clothes underneath that hadn’t been completely soaked in the foul smelling liquid.

They were taking a moment to rest when a slimy tentacle reached through the maintenance hatch they’d just used to escape, and Ben pulled his blaster. “No, wait,” Leia shouted, louder than she’d meant to. “They’ll hear!” He fired anyway, and the sound echoed through the passageway. She was furious. “I don’t know who you are,” she told him, “or where you come from. From now on, you do what I tell you. Okay?” It wasn’t a question.

“You listen to me, Your Worshipfulness. I only take orders from one person: ME.”

“It’s a wonder you’re still alive. Will somebody get this walking carpet out of my way?” she stormed past them, toward what she hoped would be escape. The Wookiee, whom she had heard him call Chewie, made a small, offended sound, and she felt, briefly, badly for the walking carpet remark. He had taken quite a risk coming here to rescue her, a person he didn’t even know. It wasn’t his fault that his companion was so obnoxious. She glanced back at him apologetically, but he ignored her.

Her mental map of the station had not included the trash compactor or any of this area, so it was minimally helpful navigating their way to the hangar bay where Ben and Luke had last left their ship, but fortunately Luke had something better: the droids. R2D2, the very astromech on whom all her hopes had been pinned, and C-3PO, another of Captain Antilles’s droids from the Tantive. Over the commlink they were able to give some directions, and before too long they could see the ship itself. She raised her eyebrows. The ship was... not encouraging. It was a small, light ship, probably of Correllian manufacture originally, which was a good start, but it appeared to have been taken apart and put back together with random parts many, many times. It looked, quite frankly, like it might fall apart if it tried to enter hyperspace. Did these maniacs really think they were going to escape from the Death Star on _ this _ ? “You came in _ that _ thing?” she sputtered. “You’re braver than I thought.”

It was unnecessarily rude, like the walking carpet remark, but at least she was addressing it to the right person, this time. Something about this Ben Kenobi character got under her skin in the worst possible way, and it was evident that the feeling was mutual.

They were found, again, and, much to her surprise, Ben Kenobi recklessly ran out to draw the fire of the stormtroopers, shouting “get to the ship!” over his shoulder as he went, his Wookiee friend hot on his heels. She and Luke ran the other way. They took a wrong turn somewhere, ending up trapped over some kind of yawning chasm. This would never get through the Senate safety committee, Leia thought, absurdly. Her new friend shrugged and pulled a grappling hook from his belt, and they swung across, clinging to each other. She’d done things like this before, but never while being shot at.

When they made it to the hangar, the other two were waiting for them. “What took you so long?” Ben Kenobi asked her, in a roguish way that would _ almost _ remind her of Cassian, if it weren’t for the fact that she had adored Cassian and couldn’t stand this man.

“We ran into some old friends,” she replied. She had to admit he had courage, and had undeniably saved her life.

“Is the ship all right?” Luke asked.

“Seems like it, if we can get to her. And hope the old man got the tractor beam out of commission.”

As if mentioning him had brought him forth, the “old man,” who must be Obi-Wan, appeared on the other side of the bay, and with him was Vader. They both held lightsabers, and they circled each other warily, swords clashing from time to time. Even from this distance, Leia could feel that there was something ancient and terrifying between the two, that this was not the first time they had faced each other like this. But it’ll be the last, she thought, ominously. 

The duel was perfectly timed to provide a distraction for the stormtroopers who had been indifferently guarding the ship. “Now’s our chance,” said the man she was starting to think could not possibly be Ben Kenobi, and they ran for it.

She was so focused on getting to the ship that she didn’t see the old man get cut down; only heard Luke’s wail of anguish, drawing the attention of the stormtroopers and Vader as he began firing his blaster at them. “Luke,” she screamed, “it’s too late!” Desperately, Luke fired at the control panel for the door, locking Vader and the troops on the other side, and all four of them piled into the ship. Now for the next crisis, she thought grimly, as they took off.

The ship’s interior was small, but not uncomfortable, other than the rancid smell rising from their bodies and clothes. Luke slumped over a table and she draped a blanket around his shoulders. What had the old man been to him, she wondered. What had happened to him before he’d come to her? There was a well of deep sadness in him that she recognized. He hasn’t lost his planet, she thought, but he _ has _ lost his world. It was comforting to be able to comfort someone else. Easier than thinking about her own grief, which would overwhelm her if she let it.

They didn’t have more than a moment to take a breath. They were being swarmed by TIE fighters. One landed a hit, but not a critical one. Even in the chaos she couldn’t help but admire the Wookiee’s piloting skills. They managed it. By the skin of their teeth, again, they got away. Elated, she embraced Chewie and laughed. But there was a niggling doubt at the back of Leia’s mind. Why weren’t more fighters pursuing them? Why hadn’t Tarkin used his planet-killer to take the ship out altogether? There was no way they should have escaped like this. It made no sense. There had to be a tracker on the ship. But where? The ship was so full of nooks and crannies, it could be anywhere, inside or out. So what now? She checked that the R2 unit still had the data card she’d given him; he did. She had the information, but how could she get it to whatever remained of the Alliance, without leading Tarkin right to them?

She thought over her options, uncertain. Chewie howled what sounded like a question; probably asking where they were going next. She could try to lead Tarkin on a wild goose chase, rather than directly to their target, but every time they caught up, they would run the risk of capture or death, and the Death Star schematic still wouldn’t be where it was needed. There was no other choice; she told him the location. He made a soft howl, nodding his head and entering the coordinates. She felt a surge of gratitude toward him, and finally apologized for calling him a walking carpet. He waved her off, saying something in Shryiiwook. _ Don’t worry about it _. Something like that. “How fast can you get us there?” she asked him. “We don’t have much time.” Of course she couldn’t understand his answer, but the confidence with which he replied was reassuring. She had always had a good feel for when she could trust people, and she trusted Chewie.

“You can call me Leia, by the way,” she told him, even though of course it was unlikely that he could actually pronounce her name, any more than she could pronounce his properly. “Chewie” was only an approximation, the best a human tongue could do. He answered her with his own name, longer than what she’d been calling him. “Chewbacca,” she repeated; as close as she could get. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh yeah,” came a voice from behind them as the captain entered the cockpit. “I guess I never formally introduced myself, did I? Han Solo. You’re welcome for the rescue. I’ll take the payment in any currency you have available.” He saluted her, grinning. “Your Worship.” 

Han Solo. She had been less and less convinced of her initial assessment that he must be the Ben Kenobi that Luke had mentioned at first, so she was unsurprised by the different name. Perhaps Ben had simply been another name that old Obi-Wan had used while he’d been in exile. It didn’t much matter now. The question of the “payment” that Solo had mentioned was a more important question, but not one that she wanted to explore until she’d had the bath and change of clothes for which she had been longing even before her adventure in the trash compactor.

“Not a bad bit of rescuing,” Solo went on, overly pleased with himself, which she had the feeling he often was. “Sometimes I amaze even myself.”

“That doesn’t sound too hard,” Leia replied, trying to control her urge to roll her eyes. She may as well clue them in that they weren’t out of it, yet. “They let us get away. They’re tracking us.” She ignored his outraged protest, saying, more to herself than to anyone else, “Thank goodness the information in R2 is still intact.”

“What’s so important?” asked Solo. “What’s he carrying?”

She told them the truth. That there was a chance, however slim, that the information in the droid would reveal the weakness of the battle station they had just escaped. If she could get it to the Alliance in time, she thought.

Solo rolled his eyes. “I’m not in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid. I’m in it for the money.”

What kind of a man was this, who had seen the wreckage of an entire planet destroyed, but still didn’t care about anything but himself? She flinched when he called her “princess.” She wasn’t the princess of anything anymore, was she?

“You needn’t worry about your reward,” she replied testily. “If money is all that you love, then that’s what you’ll receive.” She wasn’t sure that this was true. The information they were carrying was important enough that the Alliance would certainly be willing to pay for it, but whether it would be enough for this mercenary not to betray them at the first opportunity was less certain. She would pay him off herself, if she had any money, but the royal treasury of Alderaan was destroyed along with everything else, and the balance in her personal accounts would have been seized by the Empire as soon as she was arrested. Her father had hidden caches of valuables for her offworld, anticipating the possibility of arrest and the need to go into hiding, but they would not be easy to access. More things to worry about another time. She left the cockpit, brushing against Luke as he entered. “Your friend is quite a mercenary,” she told him. “I wonder if he really cares about anything. Or anyone.” A parting shot at Solo. 

Luke’s response of “_ I _ care,” was troubling in its own way. The last thing she needed was this kid falling in love with her for real.


	3. Yavin IV

Mon Mothma met her in the debriefing room, pulling her into an embrace before saying anything. Leia shook her off. “We don’t have time, Senator. They’re on their way here.”

“Sit down, Leia,” the older woman said. “You’re sure they’re on their way?”

“They had a tracker on that ship, I know it. They let us get away.”

Mon Mothma nodded. “Start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out. Your ship was in drydock onboard the Profundity when they jumped to Scarif, is that correct?”

“We didn’t know what was happening,” Leia said. “If I’d known, I could have….” she trailed off.

Mon Mothma reached across the table and set her hand on Leia’s. “You did very well. Your mother and father would be proud of you.”

Leia blinked back her tears and went on with the story. Mon Mothma took notes and occasionally interrupted with questions. When she had finished, there was a moment of quiet.

“And these people with you? Are they trustworthy?”

“I trust Skywalker,” she answered, “and the Wookiee, Chewbacca. Solo is expecting a cash reward.”

“We can arrange that. How much did you promise him?”

“I didn’t,” Leia answered honestly. “Kenobi hired him on Tatooine; I don’t know what their arrangement was.”

“And assuming we pay him adequately? Can we trust that he won’t betray us to the first Imperial outpost he can get to?”

Leia paused. She remembered Solo’s headlong rush into battle, his shout that she and the others should run for it. In that moment, he would have died to save her. What good was a reward to a dead man? Whatever he said, there was more to him than money. “Yes,” she said. “He won’t betray us.”

Mon Mothma studied her for a moment. She knew Leia’s special talent. “All right. I trust your judgment.” She stood up, gently squeezing Leia’s hand again. “I’m so glad to see you, Leia. I imagine you must be desperate to get cleaned up, so I’ll let you go now.”

Leia groaned. “Thank you.” She’d slogged through muck on pathfinding missions many times, but she had never felt so filthy as this. She started toward the door when Mon Mothma stopped her again.

“Leia. There’s an emergency plan. Command has discussed it already. We’re evacuating as many personnel as we can, and I— I’ve been chosen for something else. I’ll be leaving alone, but you should come with me.”

“Come with you? Where?”

“I’ll be going- well, it doesn’t matter. I could drop you off somewhere safe. Somewhere none of this could touch you anymore.” Mon Mothma approached her, taking her hands, her large eyes full of concern and love. She and Bail Organa had been colleagues and friends for years, and she had known Leia since she was a little girl. “Your father would never forgive me if I left you here.”

Leia’s eyes flooded with tears again. “Thank you. I mean it. Thank you. But I could never forgive myself if I left.”

The older woman smiled sadly. “I thought you would say that. Take care, dear girl. If all goes well, I’ll see you again soon.”

“And if it doesn’t?” she asked in a small voice. Mon Mothma kissed her forehead.

“Even if it turns out to be the end of this Alliance, it won’t be the end of the rebellion, my dear princess. I promise you that. May the Force be with you.”

Leia lingered in the shower longer than she should have. Maybe we’re all about to die, she thought, but at least I’ll be _ clean_. When she emerged, she found that a laundry droid had cleaned her discarded robe for her. She had planned to change into something else, but she’d had an awful lot of lucky breaks so far while wearing that robe. She’d see this mission through in the same one.

Commander Willard found her in the hallway. “Your Highness! Good news. We found it. Erso was telling the truth. Going to be a tricky mission, but there’s a chance. We’re evacuating everyone we can; you should go.”

“No way Commander. I’m seeing this through.”

He grinned. “I should have known. Come and take a look. There’s a briefing for the pilots in twenty. If you insist on staying, I want you there. We wouldn’t be here right now without you.”

She felt a flush of pride as she turned to accompany him down the hallway. “Do we have an ETA on the Death Star?”

“We got a report from a shuttle with eyes on it. It’s big and it moves slow. We’ve got time. Here,” he opened a door to the command room, where some of the analysts had been going through the schematics on the data card. “Gentlemen, this is Leia Organa. She’s the one we have to thank for getting us this information. Show her what you’ve found.”

One of them gestured to the screens they were looking at. “Would have been hard to find if we didn’t know what we were looking for, but look here. You see this little exhaust port?”

“Doesn’t look like much of anything,” she said.

“No, it doesn’t. That’s how he snuck it through, I guess. But if you follow the shaft down, like this….” he traced it with his finger. “It leads right to the reactor. Drop a proton torpedo down that and—” he mimed an explosion with his hands.

“Erso sure didn’t make it easy for us,” Leia remarked.

“No he didn’t,” came a voice from the doorway. General Dodonna entered. “It’s a pretty slim hope, but it’s all we’ve got. Are you sure you don’t want to evacuate, Your Highness? There’s still one ship that hasn’t left.”

“I’m sure,” she said, and she was.

After the briefing, Leia followed the pilots to the hanger, watching from the sidelines as the X-Wings were prepped and astromech droids were fitted, and shooting a glance at the Millennium Falcon, which was still here. Han Solo and Chewbacca approached her.

“Well, I guess this is goodbye,” Solo told her, with an edge to his voice that Leia wasn’t sure how to interpret. Chewbacca added something in a mournful tone and she smiled up at him. “He says you’re crazy to stay here” Solo added. Chewie shook his head and complained, probably about the accuracy of Solo’s translation. Solo waved him off. “You don’t have to stay here to die, you know. Your Highness. You did what you came here to do, right? You brought them the droid. Chewie and I can get you out of here.”

Chewie howled in agreement.

She sighed, smiling up at Chewbacca again. “Everyone keeps telling me that. I don’t expect you to understand it, Solo, but I do have to stay.”

“Yeah well. Can’t say I didn’t offer.” He shook his head. “Good luck.”

She realized that she didn’t want him to go, and so she spoke again to prolong the conversation. “I hope your reward was adequate? You know I vouched for you, that you wouldn’t turn around and sell us out as soon as you had your payment.”

“Yeah, amazing thing about people who are about to die; they’re very generous with their cash. I’ll do okay.” He touched his fingers to his head in a laconic salute. “Take care of yourself, Princess.”

“You too. Han.”

“I always do,” he said, and headed toward his ship. Chewbacca made another protesting sound and wrapped his arms around Leia in a quick embrace before following his captain.

She shook her head. She had to admit, when she’d seen Solo and Chewbacca lingering in the back of the room during the briefing, she’d wondered if he might have changed his mind about only being in it for the money. Maybe if the situation seemed less hopeless, he might have stayed. She liked to think so. Shaking her head again, she wondered when she had started to _ like _ Han Solo.

Bail Organa hadn’t much liked to talk about his time as a general in the Clone Wars. In the last year or two, though, as it became more obvious that there was no way to avert an all-out war between the Alliance and the Empire, he had begun to talk about it with Leia more often, in an attempt to prepare her. The worst part about command, he’d always told her, was staying behind while sending other people to their deaths. Leia wasn’t in command here, but she was the one who had led the Empire to their door. She felt the weight of the responsibility that her father had always talked about settling on her shoulders, and she wished that he were here.

She saw Luke standing nearby, looking more sad than he did scared, and went over to him. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s Han,” he replied. “I really thought he’d change his mind.”

“He’s got to follow his own path,” she told him. “No one else can choose it for him.” She wasn’t sure she really believed this; she was disappointed with Solo, too. But as she always did, she knew what Luke needed to hear. When she looked at Luke, she felt that she understood why everyone kept trying to convince her to leave; why her mother and father had tried so hard to keep her away from the Alliance. He was so _ young, _ she thought. One of their pilots who knew him from Tatooine (what a small galaxy, she marvelled) had assured the general that Luke was an excellent pilot, but he’d never flown a fighter before. He’d acquitted himself well in their fight to escape the Death Star, but the Empire wasn’t going to go easy on them this time. She was afraid for him. But he was eager to get in the cockpit, and they needed every fighter they had. She gave him a light kiss on the cheek and wished him luck, and then she followed General Dodonna back to the command center. The Empire was nearly here.

Waiting in the command center, listening to the pilots over comm, and unable to do anything to help as ship after ship was taken out, was as bad as her father had said it would be, and then some. This is a suicide run, she thought. What are we doing?

She forced herself to keep her breath calm and steady. There was no point in panicking now; she would remain calm, like her father would have.

There was a moment when they thought they’d done it, and she felt a wild soar of hope, only to have it crushed again when Red Leader’s voice came over the comm again, “negative. Negative. It didn’t go in.” She drew a shaky breath. That might have been their only chance. The Death Star was nearly in range to destroy the planet.

Luke was making an approach. Leia gripped the edge of the table so tightly her hands felt numb, as the computer announced that the Death Star was in range. They were out of time. It was over. She looked around the room at the remaining leadership. She wouldn’t cry. She would stay calm. Like her mother would have, like her father would have. Like Mon Mothma would have. Like a queen.

And then… A new ship appeared on the radar, taking out the last few fighters trailing Luke, and a familiar voice came over the comm: “You’re all clear, kid, now let’s blow this thing and go home!” She couldn’t believe it. It was him. Han Solo had changed his mind after all. Of course he had to do it like this, she thought. All eyes on Solo. I suppose he’ll expect a medal for it. She smiled despite herself.

It wasn’t over yet, she reminded herself. Luke still had to make the shot. The entire command room was silent with tension, suddenly broken by a whoop over the comm. “Great shot, kid! That was one in a million!” And the Death Star exploded. The room erupted with shocked laughter and cheers. He did it, Leia thought with shock. That kid from nowhere on the Outer Rim had saved them all.

Giddy, she raced back toward the hanger bay where the ships were starting to land. Spotting Luke, she flung herself into his arms, dignity be damned, shouting his name and laughing. Everyone was laughing, although she couldn’t think what was so funny. Luke let her go and collided with Han, slapping him on the back and telling him “I knew you’d come back, I just knew it!”

Han was laughing as much as anyone. “I couldn’t let you take all the credit and get all the reward!”

Leia found herself in between the two, hugging each with one arm. “I _ knew _ there was more to you than money,” she teased. Han shook his head, but the delighted grin never left his face.

It was a party unlike anything she’d ever seen. Princesses and senators mostly attend formal, staid events. Dinner parties, receptions, the occasional ball. An impromptu celebration after narrowly escaping death was something quite different. Everyone was talking and shouting and laughing and hugging. Wine was produced from somewhere, and pretty soon hugging and dancing had become slipping off to dark corners to fall into each other’s arms. Leia felt giddy enough without any wine but a glass or two couldn’t hurt, she thought, and after a few hours, she found herself in a corner with Han, gleefully arguing with him about his real motivations for coming back.

“You’re such a liar!” she cried. “You said it yourself, you thought we were all going to die; what reward were you going to get for that?”

“That’s why you needed me,” he explained. “It wouldn’t have been a dramatic rescue if I hadn’t left first. The more dramatic the rescue, the bigger the reward. Everyone knows that.” It was not an expression she’d used before, but the only way she could think of to describe the grin he wore at that moment was “shit-eating.”

“I guess you’re expecting a medal, and maybe a parade?”

“Wouldn’t hurt!”

She laughed even harder and wondered if she was drunk or just happy. “I should go to bed,” she said, rising to her feet. “I don’t think I’ve had a bit of sleep since I got out of that cell.”

That shit-eating grin got even bigger as he stood up too. “What a good idea, Your Worship. I’m happy to join you.”

She flushed all over and punched his arm — not hard, but hard enough — “That’s not what I meant and you know it, you— you—” she couldn’t think of an insult.

“You, you what?” His voice had gone so soft and low she wouldn’t have been able to make out the words, except that he had gotten so close to her, too close, so close that she could smell his sweat and she didn’t hate the way it smelled and her skin was tingling. Something in her body dropped as it dawned on her what was happening, and for half an instant, just as his lips brushed across hers, she let herself consider kissing him back; let herself consider seeing what happened next. 

Then her common sense returned, and she shoved him away from her. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Solo. Why do you have to ruin a perfectly nice evening?” She stormed away from him, furious at him and only a little bit less angry at herself.

Han did get his medal, the scoundrel, and Leia had the dubious honor of placing it around his neck. During the ceremony he seemed uncharacteristically serious; solemn almost, although not so solemn that he refrained from winking at her with the medal around his neck. Ceremonial duties like this were second nature to Leia by now, so she did not give in to her urge to roll her eyes at him.

Luke received a medal, too, and he was beaming with pride and happiness. This was what he’d always wanted, she thought. To do something that matters. She thought again of how young he seemed, even though he was nineteen, same as her. 

The medal ceremony was squeezed in between their efforts to finish evacuating the base. With Tarkin dead and the Death Star destroyed, they had bought themselves a day or two; their contacts within the Empire said that the various moffs and admirals were so busy fighting over who was going to take over Tarkin’s position that no one had managed to coordinate an attack on the Yavin base. Darth Vader was believed to be alive, but no one was sure where he was. Leia had doubted that it was really wise to drop everything for a medal ceremony, but the general said they could spare half an hour and that it would be good for morale. After the initial frenzy of celebration wore off, people started to remember how many lives had been lost, and a formal ceremony would serve to honor not only Luke and Han, but all their lost comrades.

He was right. The medals were given out and a few simple speeches were made, and the work went on to evacuate Yavin and begin the next phase of the war.


	4. Baraan-Fa

Leia had done something she wasn’t supposed to do. General Dodonna had forbidden her to leave Yavin without a military escort, due to the enormous reward the Empire was offering for her capture. But he had also told her about the rumors that Alderaanians throughout the galaxy were being targeted. Were being hunted. Her people. She helped pack up the base, but she couldn’t get on a transport and leave with them.

When she and Evaan Verlainem left the planet in a shuttle, with R2D2 along, Dodonna had sent X-wings after them. He had been furious, and she understood why. She was disobeying a direct order. But it had to be done. Alderaan the planet was gone, but Alderaan the people still existed, scattered and distant, but still alive, and now they needed her. She was still a princess after all. Or now, she thought with sorrow and a hint of bitterness, she was their queen.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a peaceful sleep. It had been six months, more or less, since she had watched the destruction of her homeworld, and since then she had been plagued by nightmares. The destruction of Alderaan pursued her wherever she lay her head. It never failed. She would lie down to sleep, and then she was on Alderaan again. Sometimes she was outside, and she saw the Death Star approaching. Sometimes there were other people around her and they were all looking up, pointing. Sometimes she cried with fear and other times she was only curious. There were other dreams where she never knew what was happening; she was inside, she was away from windows. The dreams all ended the same way.

In the earliest days, she would wake up screaming, but as the weeks passed, it became just something she lived with; just part of the grief she would carry for the rest of her life.

Evaan brought their ship into view of Baraan-Fa, glancing up at Leia. “You sure this is what you want, Your Highness?”

“I’m sure,” she answered. 

“You sure you don’t want me to go?”

“This is how it’s got to be, Evaan. I know I can trust you to watch over our people.” Leia turned to the pilot who had become her friend over the course of their chaotic mission to gather and protect the exiled and homeless Alderaanian people. 

Evaan nodded her head as she piloted the ship in, preparing to land. “I hope somebody’s still there.”

“They’re there,” Leia said, confidently. Mon Mothma was down on that planet; she was sure of it.

At the spaceport, she hugged Evaan goodbye and, along with R2D2 and a contingent of Alderaanians who had wanted to join the rebellion, she worked her way out of the small city and into the surrounding hillsides. It was a beautiful planet, rich with life. It reminded her of home. She’d never set foot on Baraan-Fa before, but she knew where she was going. 

With both Dantooine and Yavin compromised, the rebels had nowhere big enough to house the whole fleet and command, so they had split up while a new location was determined. Leia had known about Baraan-Fa, and she was confident that she would find the rebels here, under Mon Mothma’s steady guidance.

About an hour’s hike out of town where the grass and scrub of the foothills was beginning to give way to woodland, they were confronted by a scowling teenage boy who appeared among the trees. “This is private land,” he said. “You’re not allowed here.”

Leia replied with a coded phrase used by the Alliance and he squinted slightly, then gestured them past. “Another klick up that way. They’ll be expecting you,” he added, with just a hint of a threat in his voice. She thanked him, and as she and her people hiked past, she heard him mutter something into a commlink.

Well before they had gone a full klick, ten soldiers in camouflage fatigues appeared, blasters drawn, surrounding them. “Hands up,” said the leader. “Identify yourselves.”

“Leia Organa of Alderaan.” Leia tried not to show her impatience and exasperation. “Bringing new recruits.”

One of the other soldiers, a woman, blurted out “PRINCESS Leia? The one who brought the Death Star Plans?”

Leia grinned. “That’s the one.”

“We’ll have to call it in,” the lead soldier said again, shooting a look at the one who had spoken out. “Don’t anybody move.” As he stepped aside, he added “you better search them.”

Leia sighed. She was tired, and the dozen people she had with her looked equally exhausted and were beginning to doubt that they had done the right thing. The destruction of their homeworld, and the relentless pursuit by Imperial agents out to punish Leia, had left them angry and hopeless. Leia had offered them hope, and a chance to do something. The Empire had taken everything from them, just as it had from her. They were here to fight in any way they could. But instead they were subjected to suspicion and hostility. Leia stood as straight as she could, head up, shoulders back. She would keep the exhaustion off of her face. She was their queen. She gave each of them an encouraging smile. R2D2 made a whining sound and she gave him an encouraging smile, too.

“Okay,” the soldier told them. “Let’s go.” Together they walked a short distance to a well-concealed tunnel that burrowed into the mountain. A few feet in and who was greeting her but General Dodonna himself. He did not look pleased to see her.

“So you’re back,” he said shortly. “What have you brought us?”

“Recruits,” she answered, meeting his stern gaze with her head high. “Alderaanians.”

As they walked deeper into the tunnel, it widened out into a fairly large room, with people working in various corners. The general gestured to someone who came and whisked the new recruits away to be processed. Then he gestured to Leia to enter another tunnel, and stepped into what must be his office.

“Princess Leia,” he began. “Did I, or did I not, order you that you were not to leave Yavin Base on your own?”

“Yes, general, you did.”

“And yet.”

“And yet,” she repeated. “I had a duty to my people, sir.”

“You have a duty to the galaxy. You have a duty to this Alliance. You disobeyed an order; an order, by the way, that was given expressly to protect you.”

“Respectfully, sir, I didn’t ask to be protected.”

He shook his head. “This isn’t a game. We are at war now, and that means we need soldiers. Are you a soldier, or are you a little girl who can’t stand not to get her way?”

“I’m not a little girl, sir. I understand your position, and I realize that I have lost some of your trust. But I don’t regret what I did and I won’t apologize for it. The Empire was trying to destroy the last of my people. I couldn’t allow that to happen, and I don’t believe that my mother and father would have allowed it, either. _ Sir_.” She let the last syllable hang in the air for a moment.

Dodonna sighed. “Maybe Mon Mothma can talk some sense into you. I have work to do. You’re dismissed, Princess.”

When she left the little office, she found that her hands were shaking, a little. She leaned against the stone wall of the passageway, wondering what she was meant to do now.

“Leia.” It was Mon Mothma. “I see the general has spoken to you.”

“That’s one word for it,” Leia replied.

Mon Mothma’s lips curved upward but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Come with me, Leia.”

“I know I disobeyed orders. I had to do it. If the general had listened to me—”

“You’re a politician, Leia. So was your father. So was I. In politics, there’s…” she paused. “Wiggle room. War isn’t like that.”

“I know,” said Leia, trying not to sound like a teenager being scolded. “I understand that, I do.”

“You have great potential, you know,” Mon Mothma said. “People believe in you; they want to follow you. We’ll need you when we restore the Republic. I believe you’ll have a great role to play in the Restored Republic government.”

Leia felt warm with the praise. “Thank you.”

“If,” she continued, “you survive to see it. We have a long way to go, and a lot of work to do before we get there. We need to be able to trust that you’ll be here when we need you; that you won’t rush off on your own half-considered missions or disobey orders when you think you know better. Do you understand?”

In Dodonna’s office, Leia had felt defiant, but now, under Mon Mothma’s gentle gaze, she felt the justice of the criticism. “I do understand. I promise, this was the last time.” 

Mon squeezed her hand gently. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“But you know my father would have done the same thing,” she added.

Mon Mothma looked at Leia a moment, appraisingly. “Yes,” she admitted after a moment. “I’m sure he would have. Come on Leia. Let’s find you some quarters.”


	5. Baraan-Fa

The base on Baraan-Fa was small. A significant number of the Alliance personnel on the planet didn’t even live in the bunker-like underground system of tunnels. They were spread out in towns and cities on the planet while they waited for their orders. Various planets and moons were being scouted as potential new bases of operations, but it would take time to establish a secure base, and in the meantime, they were all extra vulnerable.

“Yavin IV was really an excellent location for us,” Mon Mothma sighed. “There aren’t many habitable planets with no one living on them. All we had to do was move in to the Great Temple. Wherever we land next won’t be so hospitable.”

They were sitting in a small mess hall, while Leia picked at an unappetizing meal. “You don’t know where we’ll be moving?” she asked. “Isn’t it dangerous to stay here?”

“It’s dangerous to stay anywhere,” Mon Mothma replied. “We’re all wanted criminals.”

“What about Crait?” asked Leia. “You were there before, right? Couldn’t we move back into that base?”

She frowned slightly. “It’s possible, but we were a much smaller operation back then. And we can’t discount the possibility that the Empire already knows about that location.” She sighed and stood up, “You’ll have to excuse me, Leia. I have work to do. I’m glad you’re safe.”

Leia had only been on her own a few minutes before she heard her name being called by a familiar voice and Luke bounded up to her, his face split by a delighted smile. “I heard you were back!” He held his arms open and Leia jumped up to hug him.

“Luke! You look— different!” He did look different. Away from the punishing glare of the two suns of his homeworld, his hair had darkened to brown, and his face seemed different, as if— “what happened to you?”

“Oh that?” he ran his hand over the fading scar. “Just a bumpy landing, nothing to worry about. I’m so glad to see you again! What have you been doing? We’ve all been worried about you!”

“We?”

“Yeah, you know, Chewie, Han, and me. Well, and 3PO but he’s always worried about everything. Is R2 with you too?”

“Han?” she repeated. “Han’s still here?”

“Yeah of course! Well, he’s not _ here, _ not right now, he and Chewie are out on some mission. Boy are they gonna be surprised to see you!” Looking at her shocked face he added, “maybe not as surprised as you are right now!”

Surprised didn’t really cover it. Leia had never imagined that Han Solo would be here. She had assumed that his change of heart at Yavin would have reversed itself by now, that she would never have to see him — or think about that stolen kiss — ever again. She tried to avoid thinking about it now, and even more, to avoid thinking about the little thrill of excitement and pleasure she felt at the prospect of seeing him.

She successfully avoided thinking about Han Solo for the rest of the day. The hideout was small, crowded, and busy. For someone with Leia’s skills, there was no end of work to do. Mon Mothma put Leia to work on logistics. There were about 400 people of various species living in the hideout, and they all needed to be fed, clothed, and supplied with basic necessities. More importantly, it had to be done without drawing a lot of attention to the fact that they were there. Leia spent most of the afternoon getting up to speed.

She skipped the evening meal. The day had felt incredibly long: the hike to the hideout, her dressing-down by the general, and then learning her new job. She just wanted to get some sleep. She made her way back to the quarters she’d been shown earlier that day. The room was small, of course, and had four bunks in it: an upper and a lower on each of the parallel walls. She hadn’t yet met her roommates, but three of the bunks had been claimed when she had arrived. Between when she had come to drop off her pack and now, someone had delivered some bedding, so she stretched the sheet over the mattress and flopped down on it, not quite as gracefully as a princess probably should. She let her breath out in a sigh. It was a pleasure to be lying down. She didn’t think she’d ever appreciated lying down enough. She tossed her arm over her eyes and considered falling asleep right there, without even taking her boots off, but she wasn’t _ so _exhausted that she wanted dirty boots on her clean sheet, so she dragged herself to a sitting position so she could start untying them.

The door banged open. “Leia! Were you ever going to say hello?”

Leia’s jaw dropped. “Amilyn? I didn’t even know you were here! Amilyn… your hair!”

Leia had known Amilyn Holdo for four years, since they had served together in the Apprentice Legislature on Coruscant. In that whole time, she had never seen Amilyn’s natural hair color. Amilyn had changed her hair color at least every two weeks, and sometimes more often. Leia had seen her friend’s hair in every color in the rainbow, and it always looked vibrant and fresh. Now, the purple she had been sporting most recently was faded and she had a few inches of undyed dark blonde roots.

Amilyn touched her hair and smiled. “Yeah. Things have been hectic.”

Leia stood up and hugged her friend tightly. “I’m so glad to see you. How long have you been here?”

“Oh, a few months,” said Amilyn. “Sit down, sit down. Where have you been?”

Leia told her about rescuing the Alderaanians.

“I wish I could have come along,” said Amilyn wistfully. “That sounds like something we would have done in the old days. Disobeying orders, making it up as you go along, almost getting killed…”

Leia couldn’t help but laugh a little. “You’ve probably had plenty of opportunities to almost get yourself killed.”

“Well, sure, but not with you,” Amilyn smiled her odd, distant smile. “I wish I’d been at Yavin with you. To see that thing up close! But you were actually inside it; what was _ that _ like?”

No one else would ever have asked Leia about this. She hadn’t spoken about it to anyone since her debrief with Mon Mothma back on Yavin, six months ago. From anyone else, the question would have seemed unspeakably rude. But Amilyn was like that, and she was Leia’s oldest and closest friend.

“The cell block wasn’t that impressive,” Leia said, which made Amilyn grin. “Now tell me what you’ve been doing since I last saw you!”

In the moment she said it, she wished she hadn’t. It had been months since she’d even thought about the last time she and Amilyn had seen each other. It had been a few weeks before the battle at Scarif, when the war was still simmering. Back when there were still normal days. Leia had gone to find Amilyn at the Gatalenta government complex on Coruscant. She couldn’t even remember why. Nothing important; just to see her friend. Before she even rang for entry, the door slid open and out walked the last person she expected to see: Cassian Andor. He’d looked at her for a moment and then shrugged, a little bit sheepish, and then brushed past her without speaking. She’d turned and stared after him, but he didn’t look back. That was the last time she saw him before he died.

Amilyn had appeared in the doorway, in a bathrobe. “Oh, that’s why the door didn’t close. Hi, come on in.” Leia followed her. 

As soon as the door closed behind her, Leia had blurted out “You and _ Cassian_?”

Amilyn had shrugged. “Yeah.”

“How…?” Leia stammered.

“The usual way, I guess? I don’t understand the question.” Amilyn sat down on the sofa and crossed her long legs. She motioned to Leia to sit down, too, but Leia didn’t.

“Just— he’s always saying he’s way too old for me, but you— you’re the same age as I am!”

“Did you like him?” Amilyn sounded surprised. “You never said anything.”

“No! No, of course not,” Leia had gone hot all over with embarrassment.

“Good,” said Amilyn. “Because I wouldn’t have done that if I knew you liked him.”

“I _ don’t _ like him,” Leia had insisted. “I don’t like anybody in that way.”

Leia could tell that Amilyn didn’t really believe her, which made sense, since she was lying. But Amilyn had gone along with it and let the subject drop.

They hadn’t seen each other since that day. It was Leia’s fault. She was hurt, but not willing to admit that she was hurt. It was true she had never told Amilyn how she felt about Cassian. She hadn’t told anyone; it was too embarrassing to be so smitten with a man so much older, a man who had made it clear that nothing would ever happen between them. At least not for ten years, if they both survived. Which he hadn’t.

She leaned into her friend, squeezing her tightly. “I’m so glad to see you. I’m sorry. I lied to you the last time I saw you. I did like Cassian.”

Amilyn laughed. “I know, you idiot. I wish you had told me before. I never would have slept with him, if I knew it would hurt you. You don’t need to be so secretive about that stuff.”

“That ‘stuff?’” Leia raised an eyebrow.

“Sex, love. That stuff. It’s normal! I mean of course you liked him, he was _ sexy._”

“Amilyn!”

“He _ was_. You remember how he used to lean in whenever he had something to say? That drove me _ crazy_.”

Leia meant to roll her eyes, but started to cry instead. It was the first time she had talked about Cassian in the past tense like this. It felt silly to cry over a guy she’d had a crush on, when she’d lost her family and so much else. Leia hated crying; it made her feel weak and powerless. The only person it was slightly tolerable to cry in front of was Amilyn, because she wouldn’t make it worse by trying to comfort her. Gatalentan culture embraced emotion, including tears; Amilyn saw crying as ordinary, rather than a problem to be solved, and her nonchalance made it feel less humiliating, somehow. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her face.

“Don’t be sorry,” said Amilyn. “There’s nothing wrong with caring about somebody.”

“I feel so stupid,” Leia said. “Falling for a guy like that, right after I swore I wouldn’t ever fall in love again.”

“Falling in love is a good thing,” said Amilyn.

“Did you love him?”

“Cassian? No,” said Amilyn immediately. “No that was just for fun. I don’t think he was ever very interested in a real relationship with anybody. He kind of had a deathwish, you know?”

“That must be why he liked you,” Leia said. Amilyn laughed. One of the first things she had ever said to Leia, when they met at their first pathfinding class, was that she was looking forward to confronting the inevitability of death.

“I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say he liked me.” Amilyn smiled.

“But then why would he—” Leia didn’t know how to respond. 

Amilyn gave her a little kiss on the forehead.

“You’re kind of an innocent, you know, Leia? I like that about you.”

Leia couldn’t even protest. “I guess I just don’t— he always turned me down, I mean not that I was like, throwing myself at him, but he told me we would talk about it in ten years.” Her eyes were getting wet again.

“Well… it would have been pretty scummy of him, honestly. He would have been taking advantage of you.”

“But not you?”

“Nope. Cause _ I _ wasn’t in love with him. Honestly, Leia, it wouldn’t have been a good experience for you. It was hot as hell but there were no feelings there, like it wasn’t _ romantic_, you know? You want romance. You weren’t ever going to get that from him. Besides, can you imagine if you had, and your dad found out?”

Leia clapped her hand over her mouth. Somehow this had never occurred to her, and it was a more satisfying explanation than Amilyn’s talk about love and romance and Cassian’s death wish. And then she remembered all over again that Cassian was dead, and her dad was dead, and her mom was dead, and suddenly she was sobbing again.

“You must be wiped out,” Amilyn said sympathetically. “Get some sleep.”

“First tell me what you’ve been doing," said Leia, wiping her eyes. "Were you still on Coruscant when we destroyed the Death Star?”

“If I had been, I’d have been in a prison cell. No, I got offplanet just in time. Nobody really knew what was happening; about Jedha or anything, but things were feeling tense. Tenser than usual, anyway. You were mad at me, so I didn’t even know you were going anywhere—”

“—I wasn’t mad at you,” Leia protested.

Amilyn rolled her eyes. “I think I can tell when my best friend is mad at me. It’s fine, Leia. But I was bored and feeling restless, so I decided I was going to take a little trip to the Bright Jewel sector and visit the Aleen system. See there’s some really unusual aspects of astrology in Aleen because their sun—”

“Amilyn,” Leia interrupted. Once Amilyn got started on her special subjects, especially astrology, she was hard to stop.

“Sorry.” Amilyn grinned sheepishly. “It _ is _ really interesting though! I’ll tell you about it later. So I was getting ready to leave and that weird tense feeling was getting worse. I just felt itchy, like I needed to get offworld right away. You could tell something was going on and it was bad. By then, official word was Jedha City had been destroyed in a mining accident. What kind of mining accident wipes out a whole city? I don’t think anyone believed that, but that was the official story. I hired a ship, the guy absolutely gouged me on the price but I was getting really nervous by then so I didn’t haggle as much as I usually would. Once I’m up in the air I just kind of spontaneously decided I wasn’t going to go to Aleen after all. I just had a bad feeling, you know? So I put in a heading for Ithor instead. Why not go someplace I've never been and I don't know anyone. It must have been the Force," she added, thoughtfully. "Protecting me."

Leia nodded. Leia believed in the Force in a general sort of way, but Amilyn _ really _believed in it. It was a Gatalentan thing, according to Amilyn. 

Amilyn went on with her story. "Once I drop out of hyperspace at Ithor, I get this message that’s being broadcast all over the place saying that the Senate had been dissolved and then a whole list of senators who had been arrested or were wanted for treason, and one of them was you."

“What did you do?" Leia asked.

"Landed on Ithor so I could ditch the ship. I liked Ithor," she said. “Very peaceful. I would have liked to have stayed, but there's so few humans there, I wouldn't be able to hide. I don't think the Ithorians would have turned me in. They're pacifists mostly. But I hired the ship in my real name, so if anyone decided to come look for me, I'd be easy to find."

"Were they looking for you?" Leia asked, alarmed.

Amilyn shrugged. "Probably not yet, but I didn’t want to wait around for them. Everyone knew we were friends, so if they knew about you…”

Leia shivered. “I’m so glad you’re okay. What did you do next?”

“Sold the ship and bought my way onto another one headed for the Outer Rim. Seemed like a good place to lay low for a while and find out what was really going on. People out there don’t really care so much about the Empire or the Rebellion; that’s all Core stuff as far as they’re concerned. I ended up on Nar Kreeta. Interesting place. I hung around and did odd jobs for a while, just kept listening to the news people were bringing in. I knew you’d gotten away, because they were advertising a pretty hefty bounty for you. Of course they claimed that you hadn’t actually escaped, because they hadn’t actually arrested you, because obviously no one _ escapes _ the Empire. But I just laid low for a while. All kinds of sketchy people come through Nar Kreeta so I knew eventually I’d meet up with someone who could get me in touch with the rebels, and a couple months ago, I did. Pretty sure you know the guy: Solo?”

“_Han Solo _ brought you here?”

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s kind of a bullshit artist, huh? He claims he single handedly rescued you from the Death Star and a whole bunch of crazy stuff.”

Leia scoffed. “Single handedly is an overstatement.”

“But he was there, huh?” Amilyn’s expression was unreadable even to Leia’s practiced eyes.

“He helped,” Leia admitted. 

Amilyn stood up and started to change for bed, and Leia followed suit. While they were changing, Amilyn casually added “When he found out we were friends, he told me that you’re madly in love with him, but you won’t admit it.”

“What?! That’s ridiculous!”

“I don’t know, Leia. It does sound like you,” Amilyn said. “I mean what were we just talking about with Cassian?”

Leia felt her cheeks get warm. “Cassian was a special case.”

“Yeah, right. I think he really likes you,” Amilyn continued. “Solo, I mean. Or maybe it just drives him crazy that you didn’t fall for his bullshit. I don’t think girls tell him no very often. He’s pretty good looking…” she trailed off, watching Leia for her reaction.

“Amilyn, you _ didn’t—_”

Amilyn laughed. “No! Even if I wanted to, he’s only got eyes for you right now anyway. Did _ you_?”

“Of course not! I don’t even—”

“Right, of course, you don’t even like him.”

“I _ don’t._” Even Leia could hear that she was protesting too much.

“I’m going to bed,” said Amilyn decisively. “You should, too. Lot of work to do tomorrow.” She climbed up into the bunk over Leia’s and stretched out. “Good night!”

“Good night,” Leia said, lying back down on her own bunk. She was exhausted down to her bones, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the things Amilyn had told her, and the confused tangle of feelings that the conversation had dredged up. She tried to count her breaths, to still her mind, but thoughts of Cassian and Han kept slipping in no matter what she did. Cassian, leaning in close and telling her that she was a beautiful girl, and she could use that. She didn’t mind those thoughts so much, but somehow Han Solo’s smug face kept appearing in her mind, as well. There he was, congratulating himself on the rescue, and there he was offering to take her off Yavin, to safety, and there they were hugging after Luke destroyed the Death Star.

And how much fun it had been, talking and laughing and drinking with him afterward, until he kissed her. She didn’t want to remember the warm rush of excitement she had felt when she realized he was going to kiss her, and she didn’t want to remember that moment when she had considered kissing him back, but she couldn’t seem to let it go, or stop asking the question: what _ would _ have happened, if she had let something happen? What would he have done, if she had let him do anything? Hoping Amilyn was asleep, she shifted around in the bunk, hoping to find a way to relieve the pressure that was starting to build between her legs in some way other than the usual one. Not over Han Solo.

Yes, all right, he wasn’t unattractive, and he could be charming when he wasn’t being insufferable. And yes, she hadn’t completely hated the kiss. But Amilyn was right about one thing: Leia wanted romance, and Han Solo was anything but romantic.

That night, she didn’t dream about Alderaan. Instead she dreamed about Cassian. She was standing on a beach, and the sky was lit up with the most intense and glorious sunset she had ever seen, but it was the middle of the day.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Cassian, who was standing next to her.

“Where is this?” she asked him.

“This is where I died. See? The sky is on fire. You didn’t know that it was beautiful, did you?”

“No,” she whispered. "I didn't."

“I saw it twice, you know. Once on Jedha, once here."

“Did it hurt?” she asked him.

“Not really. It was quick." 

“Were you scared?”

“To die? I was ready. I was almost…" he paused, as if he were searching for the words. "Almost happy."

“Happy?” she echoed, confused.

“It sounds crazy, doesn't it? I was never happy in my whole life, but right then… everything made sense. And I wasn't alone. For the first time in a long time." He gestured out to the beach, where she saw two figures on their knees in the surf, clinging to each other. One of them was Cassian.

“I loved you," she told him, because she would never have another chance to. Because she wished she had said it while he was alive, even though he had probably known, even though he would never feel the same way, she wished she had told him.

“Next time, fall in love with someone who can love you back." His voice was kind. He had always been kind to her. Her view of the lovers on the beach grew blurry through her tears.

“Look," said Cassian. "It’s about to happen.”

“I don’t want to look,” she whispered.

“Then you’d better wake up.”


	6. Baraan-Fa

Life at Baraan-Fa was busy. Leia had been looking forward to spending more time with Amilyn, but in fact they hardly saw each other. Leia’s time was split between working on supply logistics and sitting in on council meetings with Mon Mothma. She knew this was training; Mon was expecting her to eventually take her father’s place in Alliance High Command, just as she had taken his place in the Imperial Senate a year ago. The general was still angry at her, so for now she kept her head down, paid attention, and found ways to make herself useful.

Amilyn, meanwhile, was rarely even on Baraan-Fa; she was a lieutenant in the fleet now, frequently gone for days, or even weeks at a time on raids. So Leia spent what downtime she had with Luke, who was currently grounded while he recovered from his “bumpy landing.” Unfortunately, that meant spending time with Han. The momentary infatuation she had felt after talking about him with Amilyn faded immediately after spending a few minutes with the real thing. 

“So she’s back,” he said when he first saw her. “I knew you couldn’t stay away. Missed me, didn’t you?”

“Hardly. I thought you’d be off chasing a payday somewhere.”

“So you  _ were _ thinking about me?” There was that shit-eating grin again. “Anyway, what do you mean, ‘a payday?’ I’m wounded. I mean it, I’m truly wounded! I’m a bona fide hero of the rebellion, sweetheart. I got a medal and everything. A payday! Can you believe this, Chewie?”

Leia couldn’t understand Chewbacca’s words, but his reply sounded sarcastic. 

The rebellion was growing bigger all the time. As Leia had promised Tarkin, the example he’d made of Alderaan had not subdued the galaxy, but had galvanized it. They had become a martyr. It didn’t make it hurt any less, and it didn’t stop her nightmares, but at least the deaths had meant something.

They were still in need of a new base of operations. Baraan-Fa would not do much longer; it wasn’t remote enough; they would be found. Crait was not an option; Leia had gone there with Luke, Han, Chewie, and Wedge Antilles to scout it, and they had been betrayed. They’d escaped with their lives, but the Empire knew about the facility, so they couldn’t stay there.

Leia was disappointed. She had met her father on Crait, once; it was where she had learned that he was a leader of the rebellion. She had felt as if he were with her when they landed. It wasn’t the most pleasant planet; the thin layer of salt that covered the surface was easily stirred up by wind, and any exposed skin would be stung raw and red within a few minutes. Han complained about it, but Luke pointed out that it wasn’t much different than the sands on Tatooine, which was where he and Han had met. Leia wondered what Tatooine was like. Luke hadn’t had much to say about it, but it was his home. Did he ever miss it, like she missed Alderaan?

Of course there was a difference: Tatooine was still there. Luke could go back if he wanted. She asked him about it on their way back from Crait. He shrugged. “There’s nothing there to go back to. My aunt and uncle were my only family, and stormtroopers killed them and destroyed our farm. What would be the point in going back?”

“What was it like there?” she wasn’t sure why she wanted to know. There was something about Luke that she was drawn to; she wanted to be able to picture his life before he met her.

“It’s a hellhole,” offered Han. “Hot, dry, dirty, and full of the scummiest people you’ve ever seen.”

“Like you?” Leia asked.

“I’m one of the nice ones,” he replied.

“Well that  _ is _ a terrifying thought.”

He saluted her.

“Mos Eisley was like that,” Luke said with uncertainty. “At least, I only went there once, but yeah, it was pretty bad. Where I grew up was just boring. We were miles from any town, on the salt flats. The most boring place in the galaxy, probably. Our idea of big excitement was when the junk traders came through.”

“What were your aunt and uncle like?”

Luke hesitated, like he wasn’t sure how to answer. “They were… practical. They worked hard. It was a hard place to live. I don’t think my uncle ever forgave my father for leaving and getting wrapped up in the Clone Wars and everything. He thought he should have stayed home and not got himself killed. I don’t remember my father at all; Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru raised me since I was a baby. He never really told me much about him; they were step brothers, I guess.”

“What about your mother?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if Uncle Owen ever met her. She wasn’t from Tatooine, that’s all I know.” He sounded a little distant. Leia’s heart contracted and she reached for his hand.

“I was an orphan, too,” she said. “My parents adopted me when I was a baby. I don’t know anything about my first set of parents either.”

“So, we all have our sad stories.” Han interrupted them. Leia jumped. She’d been so focused on Luke, she’d almost forgotten Han was there. “You wanna hear mine? It doesn’t involve growing up in a palace and wearing tiaras, I’ll tell you that much.”

Leia’s face tightened. “I wasn’t asking for any pity, Captain.”

“Oh good, cause you’re not going to get any.”

“Was there something else you wanted to say?” she asked. 

“What would I have to say to you, Princess?” Han got up and left the cabin, headed to the cockpit. “We’re almost back.”

“He is the most irritating man alive,” she told Luke.

Luke looked uncomfortable. “Oh, Han’s okay. He’s just a little full of himself.”

“He’s full of something,” she agreed.


	7. Hoth

After General Dodonna died, Mon Mothma put Leia and her “team” — Han, Luke, and Chewie — in charge of the search for a new base. Leia was glad to be tapped for the mission but had to put up a protest about Han.

“I don’t want to hear it, Leia. I know you and Captain Solo have some kind of personal issues between you, but he has more experience than anyone in evading Imperial detection.”

“Because he’s a smuggler!” Leia pointed out.

“Yes, and? That’s exactly the kind of skills we need right now. I’m done arguing with you, Leia. Captain Solo is going on this mission. If you’re not willing, I will assign someone else to lead it.”

Before he died, the general had compiled a list of possible locations. None of them were particularly appealing as places to live. The best candidate, in Leia’s opinion, was Hoth: a bleak wasteland of ice, surrounded by asteroids that regularly fell to the surface as meteorites. The planet itself was, in Han’s words, “a shithole,” and “the worst place I’ve ever been,” but there was an old mining installation built into a series of natural caverns in a cliff face, which could provide shelter. It even had ample room to use as hangar bays for the ships. 

“It needs some serious work before we can move in, but it’s the best of the available options,” said Leia, in her report to High Command. “It’s so remote; there’s no sign of any patrols out that way at all. And the asteroid field provides interference against scans, if anyone does pass by.”

“Won’t it interfere with our scans, too?” asked General Draven, frowning.

“It’s not that powerful an effect,” replied Leia. “If someone were really looking, the asteroids wouldn’t make that much of a difference. But it’ll screen us out from routine scans if there’s a patrol passing by.”

“You’re sure the mining installation is abandoned?” asked Mon Mothma.

“There’s no sign anyone has been there in years,” Leia confirmed.

“We have to ask ourselves why they left,” said Draven.

“It’s a harsh planet, sir.”

"My people won't be able to survive there," pointed out Admiral Ackbar, who commanded the fleet. "I'm not convinced even your people can. You said it gets how cold at night?"

"It won't be comfortable for any of us," Leia admitted. "It probably won't be possible to keep it at an acceptable temperature for Mon Calamari, I'm afraid."

"We can stay aboard our ships," Ackbar said. "We should keep the fleet spread out anyway, in case we're discovered."

"We'll need your voice at council meetings, Admiral," said Mon Mothma.

"I can appoint a human officer to represent me," said Ackbar. "It's not an impossible task. But did you happen to visit any _ warm _ planets?" he asked Leia.

High Command spent several hours debating the merits of the planets Leia had scouted, but ultimately they agreed with her assessment and chose Hoth. General Rieekan was delegated to put together the first team and start preparing the new base for their occupancy. He and Leia met so she could give him all the data on the planet and the abandoned mining installation. 

Rieekan was Alderaanian, but Leia had not known him very well. He was a gruff man, a career soldier, but he treated Leia with the kind of special courtesy she always received from her people. It felt strange to be a princess again; she had spent so little time around people from home since arriving at Baraan-Faa. She was a soldier now.

It was another six months before Leia went to what Rieekan had dubbed Echo Base. Han and Chewbacca went back and forth often, running equipment and weapons to supply the new base, but Leia stayed on Baraan-Fa helping to coordinate the move and try to keep things running. The Alliance was trying to avoid any large scale battles until they were better established on their new home, but they needed to keep up the pressure with raids and skirmishes, which was always risky. Meanwhile, slowly but steadily, supplies and people filtered into Echo Base.

Solo wasn’t wrong about this planet being a shithole, she thought to herself as she exited the transport ship. Even though they’d landed in an indoor hangar, the temperature in the hangar was bad enough that her skin already hurt where it wasn’t covered. She wrapped a scarf around her face. 

She tried not to notice that the Millennium Falcon was docked in the same hangar, which meant that Han was here, and when she failed at not noticing it, she tried not to care.

Echo Base was up and running, more or less. There was still plenty of work to be done, but most of the personnel that would be stationed there had arrived and it was no longer quite such a work in progress. It was a hard place to live. While the rest of the base wasn’t quite as frigid as the hangar bays, it was still the kind of place where you were always cold. The living quarters were in the deepest part of the mountain, with the most insulation, but even there, there was always a chill. 

One nice change was that Leia had a room to herself again. When she had mentioned this to Amilyn, her friend made a remark to the effect of not knowing why Leia needed privacy when all she would ever do in her bunk is _ sleep _. 

Amilyn was not stationed at Echo Base, but she was on Baraan-Fa a few days before Leia was due to leave, so they got to say their goodbyes. Neither of them knew when they’d have the chance to meet again, but it wasn’t impossible that Amilyn’s ship would come to Hoth at some point. Amilyn had turned out to have a talent for ship to ship combat tactics and was advancing through the ranks quickly. It wouldn’t surprise Leia if Amilyn were commanding her own ship soon.

There was a particular kind of loneliness for Leia on Hoth. She was busy, as always, and surrounded by people, usually, but she missed Amilyn. They hadn’t seen each other often over the last year, since they had both been out on missions, but at least they had seen each other sometimes. 

She had become very close to Luke, but their relationship still seemed undefined in some way that made her a little cautious with him. And as good a friend as he was, he wasn’t Amilyn. He hadn’t known her before the Death Star, and he admired her too much for her to ever risk showing him that she wasn’t always strong. Chewbacca was always friendly, and she liked him very much, but she was only just beginning to understand his speech; and anyway he was 200 years old and definitely not someone she could talk to like she could Amilyn. She and Amilyn had been friends since they were sixteen years old. Would she ever have another friend like that? 

And then, of course, there was Han. 

Luke thought that Han was great, and sometimes she agreed with him. Han had done a lot of important work for the rebellion since his sudden change of heart at Yavin, and he seemed to take things more seriously now, instead of living as if his whole life were a joke. And of the group of them, he was the most _ fun _ to be around. He was still arrogant and blustering, but when she’d spent enough time with him she’d started to find it more amusing. At least it was a distraction from the constant grim cold and danger. And she started to sense what was underneath that mask; he _ did _ have a sad story, although he’d never shared it with her or Luke.

Not that it excused his worst behavior. He wasn’t completely reformed. He could be condescending and vulgar, and he flirted with her more than ever, which she hated, but mostly because she secretly liked it so much. But he ran hot and cold with Leia. Sometimes he flirted and joked and played like he was about to kiss her again (he never did), and then the next day he would be withdrawn and sulky. Not the faux-wounded way he acted when he was feeling playful but she’d rejected his advances, but as if he were really hurt or angry with her. Leia was good at understanding people, but she didn’t understand Han, and it made her angry right back at him, and they would fight, and then they would go a day or two hardly speaking a word to each other. Despite their fraught personal relationships, they made a good team, so Leia was not infrequently sent along with Han on certain missions. Luke always came along, and with him and Chewie there, Han and Leia could usually manage to avoid fighting until they made it back to base. Usually.

She knew that people in the base were talking and speculating about her and Han, and it embarrassed her. She tried to avoid him or at least avoid fighting with him, but he was an expert at winding her up, and he enjoyed it, and she couldn’t figure out why she seemed to enjoy it, too. If she could talk to Amilyn about it— Amilyn had more experience with this kind of thing. Cassian had not been her only conquest; far from it. And Amilyn had no sense of embarrassment or shame about it. But maybe she wouldn’t have been able to figure Han out either. When Amilyn saw someone she liked, she just let the person know, and if they were interested, they were interested. If they weren’t, Amilyn didn’t seem to mind too much.

One downside (or upside, really) to having her own room was that when those unbidden, unwanted thoughts of Han rose up in her at bedtime, she couldn’t use her roommates as an excuse not to do the thing she wanted to do. So she did it, but she tried not to think of Han while she did, with mixed success. It didn’t seem right to fantasize about Cassian, since he was dead, and that left her first boyfriend out, too. But if she tried not to think of anyone in particular, Han usually showed up.

Finally she had to admit to herself that she was just attracted to him, and that trying to deny it was only making it worse. So she gave herself permission to stop worrying about it, and to let herself wonder what would happen, if she ever let something happen. She was hoping this would get it out of her system, but it had the opposite effect, and she found herself with her hand between her legs, thinking about Han, just about every time she went to bed. At least it helped her sleep a little better.

She still had the dreams, but they were less intrusive, and she woke up with tears on her cheeks less often than she used to. Maybe she was just getting used to it. What a grim thought.

Since the dream about Cassian, she had come to believe that what she was dreaming was true; that she was experiencing the deaths of the people who had been on Alderaan at the end, one at a time. There had been about two billion people there, so if she was right, she would be dreaming the dreams for the rest of her life. She didn’t understand how it worked, but she was sure the Cassian dream was true. Where would she have gotten the image of him clinging to a woman on the beach at the moment of his death? She still wasn’t even sure who the woman was, but she was glad for Cassian that he had found someone he cared about.


	8. Echo Base

She was in the command center, studying the readings that were coming in from the sensors that had just been placed — they had to replace the sensors frequently because of the weather — when she heard Han tell General Rieekan that he was leaving. She glanced up and back at him, trying to make it look casual, and probably failing. Han noticed her but kept talking to the general as she listened. His reasoning made sense. He owed a lot of money to a gangster back on Tatooine, and they _ had _ recently run into a bounty hunter who had been eager to collect. Hell, it was probably actively dangerous to the Alliance to have him here; they were all wanted by the Empire, but Hutts were more creative. But she couldn’t shake the flare of anger at the thought of him abandoning them.

Having completed his conversation with the general, he walked over to her. “I guess this is it,” he said. She knew what he wanted from her and she was not going to give it to him. He wanted her to beg him to stay. To hell with that. He was a grown man. He could do what he wanted.

He got angry, like she knew he would, and sarcastically said “well don’t get all mushy on me. So long, princess,” as he stormed out. Leia noticed Rieekan’s sidelong glance at them and gritted her teeth. Enough of the talk and the rumors. She was glad he was leaving.

Except she wasn’t glad. She was furious. So she followed him out into the passageway and called his name. He turned around, annoyed but also strangely hopeful. “Yes, Your Highnessness?”

So irritating. The calm conversation she had intended to have escalated almost immediately into another fight, until Han finally said what he’d really meant all along: “You want me to stay because of the way you feel about me!”

She pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Yes! You’re a great help to us, a natural leader—”

“No!” Han was almost shouting now. “That’s not it.”

“You’re imagining things,” she told him. He _ was _ imagining it. He _ was_, she told herself firmly.

“Oh yeah? Then why are you following me? Afraid I was gonna leave without giving you a goodbye kiss?”

Why was he like this? “I’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee,” she snapped.

“I can arrange that. You could use a good kiss!” he shouted as he stormed down the passage.

Well. So much for putting the rumors to bed. Leia carefully avoided looking at anyone’s face as she turned and walked the other way, going to her quarters to calm down.

An hour or so later, Leia went looking for Luke. He would be upset about Han leaving, and maybe trying to make him feel better would distract her from her humiliation about the scene in the hallway. But Luke was nowhere to be found. He’d been out placing sensors earlier, and Han had mentioned to the general that Luke wanted to check out a meteorite he’d seen hit, but that had been hours ago. He should be back by now. She checked in with several officers but no one had seen him. She felt a tingle of worry along the back of her neck. She knew better than to ignore her intuition, so she tried to get Han on the commlink. Sure, they were furious at each other, but the one thing they always agreed on was their affection for Luke. If anyone knew where Luke was, Han would.

But Han didn’t answer; she called several times with no response. She knew he was in the hangar doing some repair work on the Falcon, but she really didn’t want to have to see him face to face. They would probably just fight again. She checked all the sensor readings. The sensors Luke had placed were in place and working fine, but there was no indication of him that she could see. She called Han again. No answer. She thought about asking someone else to call Han, in case he was just ignoring her, but didn’t.

C3PO and R2D2 happened by and she waved them over. “3PO. Will you go to the hangar and find Captain Solo? I can’t get him on the comm but no one can find Luke. I want to know if he’s seen him since they went out to place the sensors.”

“Oh dear!” said the droid. “Oh I do hope he’s all right. Do you think something happened to him?”

The worried feeling on the back of her neck intensified. “I don’t know. Go do what I asked you, please.”

C3PO kept tut-tutting and making nervous exclamations all the way down the passageway, and probably until he met Han. Who would build such a nervous droid, Leia wondered, not for the first time.

She kept watching the sensor readings, and kept getting nothing. Han never contacted her, but she heard that he’d gone out himself on a tauntaun to look for Luke. Her nervous feeling had expanded to a knot of anxiety in her belly and was getting worse every minute. Cold as it was, she waited near the entry where Han had gone out, watching for them, until the gates had to be closed for the night. She felt sick. Back in her quarters, she counted her breaths to calm down, but the fear kept creeping back in, until suddenly, for no reason at all, the tingling on her skin disappeared and the knot in her belly unclenched — not all the way, but some. She closed her eyes and drew a long, slow breath. It was all right. They were alive, at least for now.

In the morning, she was prepared to insist that they send out some speeders to look for them, but she didn’t have to fight for it. Everyone on the base loved Luke, and nobody wanted to believe he was dead. He was the kind of person you couldn’t help but love.

Whatever had happened to Luke out there had been pretty bad, but Han had gotten to him in time to save his life. He had been attacked by something; some life form that must have been here all along, but had managed to hide from them for months.

There were some other concerns being raised at the moment, too; their energy shield generator was having issues and while it was being fixed, the general didn’t want any ships in or out of the system. That meant a lot of things, including no new deliveries of supplies or food. It also meant Han was still here, as he reminded her when she went to visit Luke after he got out of the bacta tank.

This time she was going to keep calm and not let him bait her into a fight. She was grateful to him for rescuing Luke, and he was probably only being this obnoxious because _ he _ was going to miss _ her _ and just wanted to believe that she felt the same way.

He pushed her, though, like he usually did, and she tried to content herself with calling him delusional, but he just kept pushing, telling Luke and Chewbacca that she “expressed her true feelings” for him in the south passageway. Luke seemed a little too interested in this particular piece of information. She _ had _ expressed her true feelings in the passageway: revulsion, disgust, hatred, but Han had to make it sound like something else.

Of course he got her worked up. Other than flying and rescuing Luke, making Leia angry was what he was best at. Eyes twinkling, he said to Luke “must have hit pretty close to the mark to get her all riled up like that, huh kid?” 

She wanted to slap him — or better yet, shoot him, not anywhere fatal, just enough to give him a good burn. Instead she did something even stupider and kissed Luke on the mouth.

It was a mistake, and she immediately knew it was a mistake, but she had already done it, so she just shot a nasty look at Han and stalked out of the room. What a stupid thing to do. She’d been friends with Luke for three years now, and while at first there had been something not unlike attraction between them, she had pretty quickly realized that it was something else. It was more like — Leia had never had any siblings, but she thought that the way she felt about Luke was like the way she might have felt about a little brother. But you don’t kiss your little brother on the mouth to make someone else jealous. 

And why did she want Han to be jealous anyway? Why couldn’t she shake this thing, whatever it was, that attracted her to him? Luke would actually be a much more appropriate choice; he was the same age as her, and _ he _ wasn’t an asshole. 

The next time she saw Luke she tried to apologize but he just rolled his eyes. “You know I wish you two would just get together already; you’re making everyone crazy.”

“That’s never going to happen,” said Leia. “He’s leaving, anyway. Finally.”

Luke nodded, but he looked unconvinced. “I’m just saying. You’re at each other’s throats constantly; I’ve seen a lot of holovids that start out like this and end with a wedding.”

“Wow,” said Leia. “Now you’re as delusional as he is.”

“If you say so,” he said.

“Do you know how _ old _ he is, Luke?” she protested.

“I’m hearing a lot of excuses here,” he said, grinning.

“You’re an asshole,” she said, but there was no heat behind it, just an affectionate smile. “So you’re not… upset, about that thing?”

“No, no. I’m not upset about that thing,” he laughed a little, hanging his head, sheepish. “I know you don’t see me that way and I don’t really see you that way either, no offense. I guess if I did I would be a little upset? It was funny, actually; it shut Han up for about five minutes.”

“That’s probably a record,” said Leia.

Luke watched her face with interest. “So you’d tell me if you _ did _ have feelings for him, right?”

Leia couldn’t meet his eyes. “Well, I don’t, so it’s not really relevant.”

“That’s not a yes,” said Luke, but that was all he said about it again.


	9. Echo Base

There was another problem, and this was a much bigger problem than Leia’s Han problem. An imperial probe droid had landed on Hoth and it was probable that they were going to need to evacuate. They hadn’t been fully staffed at Echo Base for more than a few months but they couldn’t risk the possibility of staying behind if they’d been found. Rieekan didn’t even hesitate to make the call. 

He was right to do it. The Empire showed up, in full force, much more quickly than they should have. Ordinarily they would have followed up on their probe droid data with a scout ship or two, not a fleet of star destroyers, but that’s what appeared in their system. The evacuation was hardly underway. They were going to need to deploy pilots in fighters to defend both the base and the transports while they evacuated.

Leia waited too long to leave, until Han, who was still here for some reason, physically dragged her out of the crumbling command center. “What are you doing here? You got your clearance to leave,” she snapped at him. For a man who professed to be entirely self-centered, he sure had a habit of putting himself in unnecessary danger.

“First I’m gonna get you to your ship,” he said grimly, still trying to pull her away. Then there was an announcement that Imperial troops had entered the base and she relented, shouted to the other officers remaining in the command center that they needed to get to their transports, and allowed Han to escort her out. 

Han did not manage to get her to her ship. The passage leading to the hangars holding the large transports had caved in. So they ran the other way and she ended up on the Millennium Falcon once again. But Han and Chewie had been doing a lot of repairs on the ship and something was wrong. The engine wouldn’t turn on. Leia wasn’t panicking yet but she had a very strong feeling that Darth Vader was in one of those Star Destroyers, and she did not want to meet him ever again. At least if they could get in the air, they might be shot down and killed instantly, which sounded better than being captured and tortured again. That was a very Cassian thought. Or Amilyn.

To lighten her spirits she asked whether it would help if she got out and pushed, and Han, annoyed and worried, suggested that it might. There was no real anger behind either of their words and it was weirdly comforting to do something as familiar as fight with Han.

There were stormtroopers entering the hangar bay now, and, quips forgotten, Leia strapped herself into the navigator chair and sent out a silent prayer. Please, please, please, I don’t want to be tortured again.

Whether in answer to her prayer or just because Chewie was that good, the Falcon started up and Han looked over and grinned at her. “See?”

“Someday you’re going to be wrong,” she told him. “I just hope I’m there to see it.”

They managed to get out of the planet’s atmosphere but they were being pursued, not only by TIE fighters but by one of the star destroyers. Of course, Leia thought, her stomach sinking. They recognize this ship. This is the ship that won at Yavin. A few TIE fighters, she knew Han and Chewie could handle. A star destroyer was a bigger problem.

And now there were two more star destroyers coming for them; that was half the fleet that Vader had brought with him. They were letting transports get away trying to catch this one ship. Did he know Leia was here? She felt a chill run over her. Maybe he thought Luke was with them; the intel for months had been that Vader was particularly interested in finding Luke Skywalker. No one knew for sure what he wanted with Luke, but Luke’s father had been a Jedi and Vader was probably interested in his ability to work with the Force.

Han asked Chewie about the deflector shields and Chewie howled a negative. Han seemed grim but still optimistic. He had a talent for escaping from hopeless situations.

“I thought you were leaving,” said Leia. “Why is your ship falling apart?”

“Talk to Mr. Fix It over there, sweetheart,” he replied, not taking his eyes away from his piloting.

_ "Sorry_," Chewie said, then something she couldn’t quite catch, but with the words _ pull, thread _ and _ fall apart. _

“Yeah, yeah,” said Han, deftly moving the ship in between the star destroyers, which were now on a collision course with each other. The ships were too big to maneuver around each other, and all three of them made contact, not destroying each other, but definitely slowing them down. 

“All right,” said Han. Their path was clear. “Prepare to make the jump to lightspeed.”

C3PO, who had been trying to interrupt them throughout the entire battle, jumped in again with a “but sir!” They ignored him.

The ship did not go to lightspeed. There was a disappointing whirr of the engines and then nothing happened. Now Han looked worried.

“I think we’re in trouble,” he said.

Now 3PO finally managed to tell them what he’d been hemming and hawing about: that the hyperdrive was damaged.

This was pretty bad. Bad enough that Han told Leia to pilot the ship so he and Chewie could run to the back to try to fix it. Han was notoriously protective of the Falcon; only he and Chewie were ever allowed to pilot it. Even Luke hadn’t been allowed to, and he was the best fighter pilot in the fleet. It was too bad he wasn’t here right now. Leia, on the other hand, knew the basics and had piloted a few shuttles in her time, but as for combat flying… she’d been in a simulator once or twice.

Well it was going to have to be enough. Unfortunately, the space around Hoth was especially difficult to fly through because of the asteroid fields. What the hell was I thinking, recommending this planet, she thought. We should have gone to the one in the swamp.

A small asteroid struck the hull. Oh shit. She called Han on the comm. A working hyperdrive wasn’t going to matter if she killed them all with her bad piloting. She made a mental note to learn to fly. _ If you survive_, she heard Cassian say in her head. That’s not helpful, she told him.

Han took over the controls. He must be really worried, because he didn’t even comment on Leia’s little accident. He gave Chewie a course heading and Leia wasn’t such a bad pilot that she didn’t understand it. “You’re not actually going into an asteroid field?”

“They’d be crazy to follow us,” he said. The fact that Han was worried was making her worried, but she’d seen him do crazier things, so why not this? The ship jostled as another asteroid struck them.

“You know you don’t have to do this just to impress me,” she said. What a time to start flirting with him. The fear of death was making her a little nuts. She couldn’t see his face but she knew he was smiling a little.

Some of the TIE fighters in pursuit had surprisingly good pilots, but not as good as Han. And their fighters weren’t as maneuverable as the Falcon, even in its current state. Still, things were not looking up, and Han knew it as well as she did. 3PO’s nonstop panic attack was not helping matters, either.

“Well you said you wanted to be around when I made a mistake,” Han said. “This could be it, sweetheart.”

“I take it back.” She felt an unexpected rush of affection for him, even through her fear. Come on Han, she thought. If anyone in the galaxy could get us out of this, you can.

He glanced back at her, with a familiar twinkle in his eye that meant he’d formed a new idea. “I’m going in closer to one of those big ones,” he said.

“Closer?” everyone else in the cockpit echoed. But Han seemed confident as he skimmed along the surface of a large asteroid. 

“There,” he said, talking mostly to himself. “That looks pretty good.”

“What looks pretty good?” asked Leia.

“Yeah, that’ll do nicely,” he said, instead of replying.

Then she saw what he was looking at; an enormous crater in the surface of the asteroid, easily large enough for the Falcon to fit inside.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” said Leia.

“Yeah,” said Han. “Me too.”

He took them down into the crater, and then found a perfect little hidey hole in which to land the ship. They were perfectly hidden. Leia shook her head in astonishment. He looked back at her with his shit-eating grin all over his face. “See?”

She was smiling at him. She couldn’t help it.


	10. The Cave

Feeling confident that the Imperials were not going to find them here, Han turned his attention to fixing the ship. Leia tried not to think too much about the rest of their comrades from Echo. How many had survived? How many had been captured? Nothing she could do about it now. Focus on where you are, she thought.

The ship moved, unexpectedly, and they all looked at each other in alarm.

“Sir,” said C3PO. “It is possible that this asteroid is not entirely stable.”

“Not entirely stable?” echoed Han, who was on his last nerve with 3PO (as was everyone else aboard). “I’m so glad you’re here to tell us these things. Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.”

Leia stood up as the Wookiee and the droid left the cockpit, 3PO complaining and fussing all the way, and then the whole ship lurched wildly again, and then Han was catching her in his arms as she stumbled. She looked up at his face, and their eyes met and locked, and Leia thought, wow, Luke was right. This _ is _ just like a holovid.

“Let go,” she said after realizing that Han had been holding on to her a little too long. He didn’t. She didn’t like how he was looking at her. Or rather, she did like it. She liked it a lot, and she didn’t want to like it. The memory of that little bit of pressure of his lips on hers, three years ago, and the many nights she had put herself to sleep with thoughts of him, all started stirring up in her. “Let go, _ please_,” she said again, trying to use her haughty princess voice, but it came out a little more like pleading. 

“Don’t get excited,” he said, in the same way he might try to calm an easily-agitated animal, and she was halfway relieved, because it made her angry, and being angry felt much more comfortable — and safe — than what she’d been feeling a moment before.

“Captain,” she snapped, pulling herself away. “Being held by you isn’t quite enough to get me excited.” What a lie, she thought. What an absolutely obvious lie. And why did she have to phrase it like that? “Being held” made it sound like… well, it made it sound like being held.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he said. “We don’t have time for anything else.” 

She knew she was blushing, and he gave her a grin that she didn’t want to find charming, but did, and then he disappeared through the cockpit door. She sat back down in her seat and let out a long, shaky breath. This could not happen. It absolutely could not happen. He was such a— a scoundrel, she thought.

That was her mother’s word, “scoundrel.” A long time ago now, when Leia was sixteen and in love for the first time, her mother had expressed a little disappointment that her daughter’s first love was “so... suitable. Sometimes it does a girl good to fall for a bit of a scoundrel, now and then.”

Well that was an unproductive line of thought. And obviously her mother hadn’t been thinking of someone like _ Han Solo_, who was at least a decade older than her and was wanted by bounty hunters because he owed money to a Hutt gangster. That wasn’t “a bit of a scoundrel,” that was… 

_I’m hearing a lot of excuses here_, she remembered Luke saying, and the only thing stopping her from putting her head in her hands and groaning out loud was the fear that Han might come back into the cockpit and see her. The only thing worse than realizing that she’d fallen for Han Solo was the possibility that someone — especially him — might find out.

Like he doesn’t already know, she thought. Like the whole damn Rebel Alliance doesn’t already know. She heard Luke in her memory again: _ I wish you two would just get together already; you’re making everyone crazy._

Time to get a grip, Leia, she thought. This really should not be your top priority right now. As if to underscore the point, the ship lurched sideways again. They had to get out of here soon. She went to see how she could help.

Chewie pointed her to some valves in one of the bulkheads in the hold with an explanation that she understood most of. It was a fairly minor repair compared to the hyperdrive issue and the deflector shields, but it felt good to work; better than sitting around and worrying.

With the job completed, she just needed to pull the lever that would reactivate the system she’d been working on, but it was stuck fast. She tried again, and then suddenly realized that he was behind her, putting his arms around her, as if he were reaching for the lever. Not now, she thought, trying to shove him away, but only really succeeding in briefly pressing her back into his chest and making her stomach flip over.

“Hey, Your Worship, I’m just trying to help.”

“Will you please. Stop. Calling me that?” She struggled with the stuck lever again. 

“Sure, Leia.” Well that was worse. He said her name too intimately, as if they were already lovers, and she felt her stomach flip over again. What the hell did she mean by “already?”

“You make it so difficult, sometimes,” she said, still trying to move the lever. Han didn’t try to help her again, but he also didn’t step away from her.

“I do,” he agreed. “I really do.” He was leaning against the bulkhead now, not quite touching her. She could get away if she wanted to; he wasn’t blocking her. But she didn’t want to get away. That was the problem. “Hey you could be a little nicer, though,” he added, pretending to be hurt. She tried not to react. “Oh come on, admit it,” Han went on. “Sometimes you think I’m all right.”

It was a surprisingly mild statement, compared to what he usually tried to get her to “admit,” so she answered with something that wasn’t the truth, but wasn’t her usual denial. “Occasionally, maybe.” Her hand was sore from fighting with the stupid lever and she shook it a little and went on, “when you’re not acting like a scoundrel.”

Oh shit. There was that word again. Her mother’s word. _ It does a girl good to fall for a bit of a scoundrel. _

Han smiled. “Scoundrel? I like the sound of that.” She liked the sound of it, too, at least the way he said it.

Now, somehow, he had taken her sore hand and was gently rubbing it, and it felt nice, which she hated, and she hated how it made her wonder what his hands would feel like in other places. “Stop that,” she said, unconvincingly.

“Stop what?” He didn’t stop.

“Stop that,” she said again. “My hands are dirty.” Now that was a pathetic excuse. She was just stalling, and he knew it as well as she did, and the way he was touching her hand was feeling less like a massage and more like a caress and she could leave, she could leave right now if she wanted to, but she wasn’t leaving.

“What are you afraid of?” He was so close.

“Afraid?”

“You’re trembling.” 

“I’m not trembling.” She _ was _ trembling, because this thing, this thing between her and Han that she’d been trying so hard to deny or at least ignore had become undeniable, and hell, they were probably going to die out here anyway, so why keep fighting something she wanted? 

Han seemed perfectly calm. He had dropped his hand to her hip and was gently, slowly, drawing her closer. When meeting his eyes became too much she tried to look away but her gaze was drawn to his mouth and oh no, why didn’t he just kiss her already and stop prolonging it? He moved so slowly. Giving her time, she thought, a little wildly. Time to run away, if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to. “You like me,” he said, his voice low and soft and knowing, “_because _ I’m a scoundrel. There aren’t enough scoundrels in your life.”

Stop arguing, she thought, but she half whispered an objection anyway. “I happen to like nice men.” A lie, or close enough to one.

“I’m a nice man,” he protested softly. 

“No you’re not, you’re—” she couldn’t finish the words because he was almost kissing her and he paused one last time, just for a moment, so she could shove him or slap him or raise her knee up into his groin or do _ something_, anything, to make him stop, but she didn’t want him to stop.

And then he was finally kissing her, and everything else went out of her head.

A moment later C3PO entered the hold to announce with excitement that he’d successfully done whatever he’d been doing. It took Han a moment to let go of her, and he took a deep breath that she knew meant he was trying to avoid an outburst. As he released her he turned to 3PO and thanked him in a tone that was so full of controlled fury that it sounded much more like he had told the droid to go fuck himself. Sure, thought Leia. With _ him _ he keeps his temper.

While he was distracted, she fled the hold.


	11. The Cave

In the cockpit, Leia sat down heavily in the pilot’s seat. Her heart was racing. She needed to calm down. She questioned her choice of locations to make her retreat. Han’s chair? And the cockpit, which had only one exit, so if he came in… There was a rush of blood away from her head and she felt a little faint.

She took a deep breath to steady herself. That he would trap her wasn’t a realistic worry. In the hold, he’d given her every chance to make an escape if she wanted to. The problem wasn’t him. It was her.

And now she was sitting in his chair which felt uncomfortably close to sitting in his lap, and— no, she was going to stop that line of thought right there. Another deep breath. Another.

It wasn’t as if there was any part of the ship that _ wouldn’t _ feel like he was in the room with her. The ship even smelled like him, or else he smelled like the ship, so every one of those calming deep breaths was just another reminder of what had happened. What she had let happen.

What she had wanted to happen.

She needed to focus. Why had he had to go and do that now? Why not later, when they were out of this situation and she could afford to spend time agonizing over it? It wasn’t fair; she was sure Han wasn’t making himself crazy right now about it. He was busy, and even if he weren’t, he probably did this kind of thing all the time. It was probably no big deal to him. He was such an asshole.

And she heard him in her memory saying “scoundrel? I like the sound of that,” in that soft, intense voice and desire flared up in her body and she bit her lip and wondered what the hell she was going to do now.

She wished she had something to do to distract her, but she didn’t dare go ask him or Chewie what else she could help with. So she sat there, trying not to play the moment over and over in her mind, and failing.

Then something alive collided with the window of the Falcon and she jumped back in shock and then the thing was gone.

Maybe it wasn’t anything important or dangerous, but she had to tell the captain, so she steeled herself. She really didn’t want to see him again right now.

But she ran down to the hold and told them, and just then whatever it was started banging against the hull outside, which prompted 3PO to have what appeared to be a panic attack, and Han said he was going outside.

“Are you crazy?” she shouted at him.

“I just got this bucket together; I’m not going to let something tear it apart.”

And maybe because she was just as crazy as he was, or maybe just because she couldn’t stand sitting around doing nothing, she strapped a mask on, grabbed a blaster, and followed.

Outside the ship, things were weird. There was no sign of the creature she had seen and heard, but the cave itself seemed wrong. The ground had too much give; it was almost squishy. And everything was much damper than it should be. The prickly warning feeling she sometimes got on the back of her neck was back. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“Yeah,” said Han, talking more to himself than to her.

They found the creature and Han killed it. “That’s what I thought,” he said, poking the dead creature with his foot. “Mynocks. Chewie, check the rest of the ship, make sure there aren’t any more attached. They’re chewing on the power cables.” He sounded annoyed, but not particularly worried, which was somewhat reassuring, but Leia’s bad feeling had not abated. It was getting worse.

There were more mynocks, and they were swarming. Leia had to duck, and then, with her arms over her head, she started running back toward the ship, and then she heard a blaster shot, and there was another sickening lurch of the ground and she was stumbling as she kept trying to get back. This time the lurching didn’t stop; the whole cave was shaking and Han was grabbing her by the arm to help her aboard, and as soon as the hatch was closed he shouted for Chewie that they needed to get out of there. “The Empire is still out there,” she hollered after him. “I don’t think it’s wise to—”

He cut her off with a dismissive remark about putting things through a committee and she screamed at him that she was _ not _ a committee but he was already strapping into his seat and starting the ship up. “You can’t make the jump to lightspeed in this asteroid field!” Everything was chaotic and loud, so she was yelling at him, but he had become grim and calm again which was simultaneously alarming and reassuring. He snapped at her to sit down and called her “sweetheart” in that dismissive awful way he had and she hated him. Was it so hard to just _ tell _ her things, instead of barking orders at her as if he outranked her?

Up ahead the entrance to the cave was becoming smaller and she realized with a sinking feeling that the cave was going to collapse on them, which explained Han’s rush to leave. But he could have just _ told _ her that.

“This is no cave,” Han said, grim, and then she realized that what she was looking at were teeth; and then the odd squishiness of the ground made sense.

They escaped, but only back into the asteroid field, and even though it had been hours, she somehow _ knew _ that the Star Destroyer with Vader on it was still out there waiting for them. One crisis at a time, she thought. Asteroids first, then the Empire. But there was a sick feeling in her stomach. 

Unconsciously, she brushed her hand along the blaster still strapped to her hip. She was not going to let Darth Vader get his hands on her again.

It didn’t take long for them to be found. They were almost, but not quite, out of the asteroid field, and the destroyer was close. There was nothing Leia could do to help except try to stay quiet and not distract the pilots, so she did that. She had her hand on her blaster, simply because it was reassuring to hold it, and there was nothing else she could do, so she sent a prayer out into the universe and waited. They took a couple of hits from the destroyer but kept flying. That meant they weren’t trying to destroy the ship. Vader wanted them alive. 

She tried to push down the memories of the bare cell on the Death Star and everything that had happened there, but she could feel the panic threatening to overwhelm her. Breathe, breathe. She gripped her blaster. He wouldn’t get her this time. She wouldn’t let him.

And neither would Han. Hadn’t he gotten her away from Vader the last time? Didn’t he always manage to come through at the last second? They were going to be okay. Everything would be fine and then they would have a big fight about something stupid and then he would kiss her again and they would fight about that. It was going to be fine.

Han threw the switch to go to lightspeed, and she expected to feel a rush of relief, but nothing happened.

Now Han seemed like he was on the verge of panicking, and that was almost more frightening than anything else happening, because Han _ never _ panicked, because Han always came through at the last second.

“No lightspeed?” she asked, and it was snarky and unhelpful and rude of her, but she couldn’t help it, she was so _ mad _ at him, and she knew that being mad at him was just a way to distract herself from her terror of being caught again and she thought of how confident she had been the first time Darth Vader caught her, how she had barely been scared at all, because she had been nineteen and still thought she was untouchable, and because before you get tortured you don’t have any idea how bad it will really be, but now she knew what it was like and this time it would be worse.

No, there would be no “this time.” She felt the heft of her blaster in her hand. If it came to it… if she had to. Now _ she _ went grim and calm. But maybe she didn’t need to, because now Han had started issuing bizarre orders, which is what he did when he came up with a crazy plan.

His crazy plan was to turn the ship around and fly directly at the star destroyer, and that was less reassuring, but she didn’t have any better ideas so maybe just this one time, she would trust him without arguing.


	12. Open Space

He had actually landed the ship on the hull of one of the star destroyers. Not the big one; not the one with Vader on it, but the other one. And somehow, none of the Imperial ships seemed to have noticed they were there. The knot of anxiety in Leia’s belly was still there, but her panic had subsided. They had been clinging to the larger ship for a while now, and everyone in the cockpit was quiet and tense.

Well, almost everyone. C3PO was still talking. C3PO never _ stopped _ talking, no matter how many times they told him to stop.

_ Shut up! _ Chewie howled at him, but all that accomplished was that now 3PO was complaining about how no one ever listened to him. Han sent Chewie down so he could manually release the landing claw when Han gave the word, and then 3PO was nattering on about surrender being “a perfectly acceptable alternative in extreme circumstances” and Leia finally reached over and switched him off.

“Thank you,” sighed Han.

She hadn’t done it for him; she had done it because she didn’t want to think about what “surrender” would mean for those of them who were made of flesh and blood instead of circuits.

“So what did you have in mind for your next move?” she asked him. She felt better now. Calmer. They might actually get out of this alive. Han always comes through at the last second, she thought again, and she felt a warm surge of affection for him.

“Well,” said Han. “If they follow standard Imperial procedure, they'll dump their garbage before they go to light-speed. And then we just… float away.”

“With the rest of the garbage,” she said. That’s us, she thought, remembering the trash compactor. It was a plan. She wasn’t sure if it was a plan that would _ work,_ but it was a plan.

“Then we have to find a safe port somewhere around here,” Han went on, frowning. That was a problem. With the hyperdrive still not working, they had a very limited range. And the time it would take was another problem. She got up from her seat so she could get a better look at the charts he was scrolling through. “Well that’s interesting,” said Han. “Lando…” 

“Lando system?” she’d never heard of it.

“Lando’s not a system, he’s a man. Lando Calrissian.” Han sounded like he was mulling things over in his mind while he talked to her. “He’s a card player, gambler… a scoundrel, you’d like him.” 

He shot her a mischievous glance and she decided not to give him the reaction he was hoping for; replying instead with a dry “thanks.” Besides, she was too exhausted to play games with him right now.

“Bespin…” muttered Han. “It’s pretty far, but I think we can make it. We go back a long way, Lando and me.”

Well that could mean almost anything. She didn’t know many details of Han’s previous life as a smuggler, but it was sketchy. “Can you trust him?” she asked.

“Mm… no,” he said. “But he’s got no love for the Empire, I can tell you that.”

The star destroyer’s garbage hatch had opened, and Han gave Chewie the order to detach. Leia shook her head and she felt him smile at her with expectation. She couldn’t help smiling, but she couldn’t quite make herself look at him. “You do have your moments,” she said, in a warmer, softer tone than she really meant to. “Not many,” she added. “But you do have them.” And she gave him a quick, shy glance and impulsively kissed his cheek before leaving the cockpit.

They drifted for a little while, and then the star destroyer jumped to lightspeed and they were finally safe. But it was a long way to Bespin, and she was exhausted. She flopped down on her usual bunk and fell asleep immediately.

She woke up in the cell on the Death Star, and she was freezing cold and every part of her body ached. No, she wasn’t here anymore; she’d gotten away; they’d destroyed the Death Star. Hadn’t they?

No. That had been a dream. Luke had been a dream, and Han had been a dream, and she had never escaped this cell and she was going to die here, or maybe they wouldn’t kill her and she was just going to be trapped here forever and no one would ever know where she was or what had happened to her. She tried to scream but no sound came out. She tried to stand up but she couldn’t move. She was trapped, and she could hear the sound of boots marching down the passage outside her door and they were coming, they were coming for her now, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it.

She woke up, shaking, and was so relieved to realize that she was on the Falcon that her eyes flooded with tears and a sound that was half sob, half laugh came out of her.

“You okay?” She jumped. It was Han.

“How long have you been there?” The words came out fast and angry as she tried to hide her face and turn away.

“Not long. Bad dream?”

She didn’t answer.

“You have those a lot, huh?” His voice was neutral. Of course he knew she had nightmares. She’d slept on the Falcon plenty of times on missions, and she never slept peacefully. The most peaceful dream she’d had in three years was the one where she’d watched Cassian die.

She kept her back turned. “Can you please just leave me alone? I don’t want to talk to you right now.” She tried to keep her voice even, neutral. Like his.

There was a pause. “Okay,” he said. “You know where to find me.” And then he left.

Had Han Solo ever left her alone when she asked him to, instead of needling and pushing and trying to get her worked up?

She sank back into the bunk, face down and took several heavy breaths. Her Alderaan dreams were always horribly vivid, but she had made a kind of peace with them now that she knew what they really were. It was her responsibility, as the survivor, as their princess, to bear witness. This had been a real nightmare.

But it was over now. It didn’t mean anything. It had just been the stress of how close they had come to being captured, making her remember things she’d spent three years trying to forget. It didn’t matter now.


	13. Open Space

It was a long way to Bespin. Everyone was tense, and hungry, and bored. Traveling this way, unlike using hyperdrive, required someone to watch the helm at all times, but there was nothing to maneuver around, so it didn’t require anything more than ensuring they hadn’t drifted wildly off course.

Space was huge, and it was empty. Leia had known that, of course. But you don’t see the emptiness when you travel at lightspeed. You don’t feel it the same way. She was with Chewbacca in the cockpit while he took his turn at the helm, and she gazed out into the emptiness. It didn’t feel like they were going anywhere at all.

_ “What’s wrong?” _ asked Chewie. “_Got away.” _

She shrugged. “I’m just impatient I guess. This feels like it’s going to take forever.”

_ “Long time more,” _ is what he said. She nodded. She wondered if Chewie ever resented having to dumb his speech down so much for her to understand him. Shryiiwook didn’t sound like any human languages, which made it hard for humans to hear the way the sounds fit together in a coherent way, much less actually derive meaning from it.

_ “You usually talk more. Something wrong. Han’s an asshole.” _

She laughed, startled. “Han’s an asshole” was one of the first things she’d learned to understand in Shryiiwook. At first, Han had tried to insist that what his friend was saying was “Han’s the most amazing guy in the galaxy,” but C3PO had provided a more accurate translation. Whenever Chewie noticed Leia was in a bad mood, he would often tell her _ “Han’s an asshole_,” and it would make her smile. 

“True,” she said. “But for once he’s not the problem.”

“_Han always a problem_.” Chewie laughed and so did she. “_All humans very young to me. Always forget Han older than you. You grown up. Han still child.” _

She couldn’t help but smile. Chewbacca was some 180 years older than her, so calling her grown up was a sweet thing for him to say. “Is that why you’ve stayed with him so long? He needs a grownup to take care of him?”

Chewie hooted with laughter, and his answer was a little too rapid and complex for her to follow. She shook her head at him to show she didn’t understand and he paused a minute, then said again, slower. “_Han take care of Han always. Why I stay, long story. Friends. Ten, fifteen years, not so long for me._” 

She smiled, and decided to change the subject. She realized she knew very little about Chewie’s life before the Alliance; even less than she did about Han. She asked him about his home and his reply sounded sad. “_Empire there. Can’t go back. Not safe.” _

“You know, before I got arrested, I was supposed to go to Kashyyk,” she said. “It was just some pointless Senate thing that would never mean anything. That’s all we did in the Senate, really. But I was looking forward to it.”

“_Very pretty planet,_” said Chewie. _ “When war over, we go there together.” _Then he said something else she didn’t quite catch.

“What was that last bit?” she asked him. “I didn’t understand.”

“He said he wants to introduce you to his wife,” said Han from the doorway. She looked up at him. She’d known he was there; she’d heard him come up the passage.

“Your _ wife_?” said Leia, startled. She hadn’t known Chewie was married. She wondered how long it had been since he’d seen her.

“_She will like you_,” said Chewie. 

She smiled at him. 

“Hey,” said Han. “You’re in my seat.” 

Her smile faded and she glared at him. Did he have to ruin every nice moment? “Excuse me,” she said, tightly, and stood up to leave. Han was still in the doorway. “Excuse me,” she said again, firmer.

“Hey I never said you had to _ leave._” He grinned. Was he really trying to flirt with her _ now? _

She didn't take the bait. She was so sick of his games. Her voice became icy as she asked again. "Would you please get out of my way, Captain?"

Something flickered over his face, almost as if he were really hurt, and he stepped aside without saying anything. She was careful not to touch him as she passed.

She had only gone a few steps down the passage when she felt Han’s hand on her elbow. “I wanted to say, if you want to you can sleep in my bunk from now on,” he said very quietly.

She froze. “_Excuse me_?”

There was a pause and then Han said “I didn’t mean with me in it. I just thought— maybe you’d like the privacy.”

She stared at him for a moment. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I guess a gentleman would have offered it to you to begin with, huh?” 

“No one would ever accuse you of being a gentleman,” she said.

“No. But, look— I know you have those dreams. Maybe you’d sleep better there.” He shrugged again. “If you want.” And he went back down into the cockpit to talk to Chewie.

She didn’t know what to make of it. It was a thoughtful offer, and a kind one, and she wasn’t used to thinking of Han as either of those things.

Something had changed between them. They didn't talk to each other for hours, but it wasn't like when they'd been not talking to each other in the past. It wasn't like they were angry. They hadn't had a fight. She just didn't want to see him and he was… respecting her wishes? Which was completely unlike Han. She couldn't explain it. One of the things that was so frustrating about Han was that she couldn't quite read him the way she did most people. 

He broke the silence first, when she walked into the cabin, found him sitting there, and turned to walk out again. "It's a small ship, Leia. You can't avoid me the whole trip." It was still strange to hear him use her name instead of some insulting nickname or sarcastic use of her royal title.

"I'm not avoiding you," she said.

He chuckled. "You know, for a politician, you're not a very good liar." 

She tried not to smile but her lips curved upward a little anyway. "I'm a great liar. Maybe not as good as you," she admitted.

"Oh Han, you're imagining things, I'd rather kiss a Wookiee," he said in a high pitched, mocking voice.

The cabin was cold, but she went hot all over with anger. "Why do you always have to do that?"

"Do what?" He didn't say it in the way he usually did, like he was trying to wind her up. He said it like he really wasn't sure what she meant.

"Do _ that. _ Mock me, insult me, try to humiliate me? Why?"

He looked genuinely confused. "Humiliate you? Is that what you think I've been trying to do?"

"Isn't it?"

"No, that’s not— no.” She didn’t say anything, so after a little pause, he said “I’m sorry. I really wasn’t.”

She stared at him. Her anger was fading. Was it going to be that easy for him? He apologized, for once in his life, and she was going to forgive him? "Well what the hell do _ you _ think you've been doing, then?"

He hesitated. "I was just trying to…" He trailed off and looked away, and then something tender and vulnerable passed over his face for the briefest instant. He started over. "Look, you're the first princess I ever met, okay? It's a little…" He paused, looking up at the ceiling. "...intimidating."

She leaned back against the bulkhead. Han Solo found her intimidating?

He glanced at her, awkward. She hadn't seen him like this before. It felt strangely intimate, as if she were seeing him undressed. That thought made her cheeks warm and she knew she was blushing. She crossed her arms, still leaning against the wall, and looked at the floor, embarrassed. She didn’t know what to say.

After a moment, he went on, a little of his usual bluster restored, but softer now than it used to be. "The kinda girls I usually hang around with, that's how we talk."

"Hang around with?" she echoed, raising her gaze to meet his, a little bit arch, a little bit of a challenge. "What does 'hang around with' mean?"

They were back on solid ground now; that moment of intimacy had been unfamiliar territory, a little frightening for both of them. They were more comfortable like this. Playing games.

He raised his arms in an exaggerated shrug. "Can mean a lot of things. Why? Not like you’re _ jealous_, right?” She liked the teasing, flirtatious note in his voice. She’d heard it a thousand times, but it felt different now.

But she had to make something clear. "Well, I don't 'hang around' with people," she said. "If someone is going to kiss me, I want it to mean something."

That same tender, vulnerable expression flickered over his features and he stood up, taking a few steps in her direction. "Who said it didn't mean anything?" She felt her heart speed up. 

He didn't come any closer so she took a step toward him, even though she would prefer the support of the wall. "Well what did it mean?" Her voice came out a little more shaky than she meant it to. She took another step.

He seemed like he was searching for the right words but didn’t know what they were. He gestured at her, helplessly. She felt a little thrill, realizing that she had a power over him just like he did over her. How had she not noticed that before?

“Nothing to say, Captain?” She put her hands on her hips, a challenging posture. “But you always have something to say.”

She was looking at his eyes, which kept going back and forth from her eyes to her mouth, and she knew he wanted to kiss her, and she wanted to kiss him, too. And then, over the intercom, Chewie started yelling that if he had to watch the helm one minute more he was going to lose his mind and it was Han’s turn, and the moment was broken.

Han shrugged. “Duty calls, huh? Come up to the cockpit with me, I’ll show you how to fly her. There’s no asteroids around for you to crash us into.”

But she didn’t.


	14. Open Space

She did take Han up on the offer of the new sleeping arrangements. She didn’t have any more dreams about the Death Star, but of course her Alderaan dreams continued. But it _ was _ nice to have a cabin to herself. The captain’s quarters weren’t exactly luxurious, but they were private, and had a double bunk. For “hanging around” in, she thought with a little shiver, the first time she lay down there. She wondered how many girls Han had brought back to this bunk. And what they had done there. That shiver ran all up and down her body, and then she let herself imagine that _ she _ was the girl he’d brought back to the bunk and then she had to put her hand between her legs, and the bed smelled like him, and she wondered if he had ever lain in this bunk and thought about her while he did this, and that thought pushed her over the edge and she had to bury her face in the pillow that smelled like Han to muffle the moan that spilled out of her.

It was hard to keep track of time, but it had been a few days since they drifted away with the garbage and started on the way to Bespin. Whenever she left the cabin, she was always sure that Han would take one look at her and know exactly what she’d been doing in his bed, but he never said anything about it, and there had been no further kisses. There was still a lot of flirtatious teasing from both of them, and a few blushes and awkward glances, but they were careful of each other in a way neither had been before, as if they were both a little afraid that they would be the one who ruined whatever was happening.

On day three, Leia guiltily turned the droid back on, who finished his sentence and then began indignantly shouting about how she could possibly have switched him off. She let him run on a while and then quietly left the room while he was distracted.

“Why would you turn him on?” said Han, later. “It was so nice and peaceful with him off.”

“It would be a lot more peaceful sometimes if someone turned you off, but we don’t do that,” she told him.

He paused a moment. “But you would if you _ could_.” He was smiling and so was she, and she felt strange and warm and happy.

3PO came into the room crying doom and gloom, and Han shook his head at her just a tiny bit. “Now I get it,“ he said. “Very clever, Princess.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

There was nothing to do on the long journey, except talk to each other, and that always felt a little dangerous when they were alone, so the two of them tended to cluster in the cockpit when Chewie was piloting. The royal chaperone, thought Leia, even though she had never had that sort of chaperone. She would try to talk to Chewie, asking him about his family and his home, but Han had a hard time not being the center of attention, so his translations would gradually become less accurate and before long the flirtatious banter would start back up.

She knew it must be driving Chewie up the wall, though he never said anything to her. She did hear him arguing with Han, but she couldn’t understand the words.

Eventually Chewie would get fed up with them, announce that he was going to bed and someone else could fly the ship for a while, and she and Han would be alone, searching for a safe topic.

He did, as promised, show her how to fly the Falcon, although since they had to conserve their fuel it was all mostly hypothetical.

"Han, I know how to fly in a straight line." she said. "I’ve flown plenty of shuttles. It's what you do when star destroyers and TIE fighters are after you that I'm lost on."

So he started talking about the principles of combat flying, pointing out the controls you could use for it, and she was interested but also surprised, because his answer was more technical than she expected.

He noticed her expression. "What?"

"I don't know, I guess I didn't realize you had formal training in this. I thought…" she paused.

"Ah," he said. "Cause I make it look so easy." She laughed and nodded, and he gave her a nervous glance and added “no, I went to the academy for a while.”

“Really?” She leaned forward in her seat a little. That was interesting, and unexpected. It was hard to picture this man in that setting.

“Yeah. I washed out. Apparently I’m ‘insubordinate,’” he said, shrugging. He glanced over at her again. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“That you’re insubordinate? That bothers me constantly.”

“No,” he said. “That I joined up in the first place.”

She hesitated a moment. “We all had lives before we were here,” she said. “I was in the Imperial Senate, Han. My hands aren’t clean. I had to sign my name to things that— Anyway, clearly you weren’t very good at it if they kicked you out.” He laughed. “That’s all they did?” she added, curious. “I would have thought that insubordination would get you executed.”

“Not back then. Back then they stuck you in the infantry and let someone else kill you.”

“But you got away,” she said.

He shrugged. “And now I’m trying to teach you a little something so if I ever need you to fly this bird again you don’t crash her right into an asteroid.”

She hit him on the arm. “The whole damn planet was surrounded by asteroids! You’re the maniac who flew right into the field.”

“Worked though, didn’t it? I mean, we _ are _ still alive. You’re welcome.”

She fell quiet, looking out the window at the distant stars. “I knew we were in trouble when you told _ me _ to fly the ship. Your precious ship! You won't even let Luke fly this ship and he’s the best pilot in the fleet.” There was a long pause where they both fell quiet, and then she said, “you think he’s all right?”

“Yeah,” said Han. “I’m sure he’s fine. Like you said, he’s the second-best pilot in the fleet.” She gave a tiny laugh.

“He wasn’t really fully healed up yet,” she said. “I hope he’s okay.”

Han seemed like he wanted to ask her something, but instead he pulled up some charts on the viewscreen. “See how much farther it is,” he said.

“I’m starting to think it doesn’t even exist,” said Leia.

“Don’t you trust me?” He gave her a wide-eyed, wounded look, and she laughed.

“So? How much longer?”

“Another week,” he said. “At least.” She groaned. “Wow,” said Han. “Is it that bad being trapped on a ship with me?” The wounded act again.

“Yes, it is,” she told him. “And I hate it when I don’t have work to do. And not knowing what’s going on with the rest of the fleet. I’m going crazy. I hate waiting around.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve always thought that you work too much.”

“Shut up.”

“I mean, if you’re bored, I could probably find something to occupy your time,” said Han, and there was a sly grin creeping across his face. She tried to hide her smile, but she couldn’t. He checked the ship’s heading, made a small course correction, and then looked at her in the copilot’s seat. He reached for her hand and gave it a gentle tug. “Come here,” he said.

She bit her lip and shook her head a little, suddenly shy.

“Come here,” he said, coaxing. “I’m not gonna hurt you, Leia.”

Between her legs, that heat was building. She shifted around in the chair. “I know,” she replied, unable to meet his eyes but equally unable to look away from his face.

“So... come here.” He tugged on her hand again and she let herself be persuaded to stand up, and he pulled her down toward him and into his lap. “Hey,” he whispered.

“Hey,” she managed.

“Is this a little less boring?” he asked, in the same low voice as he had used in the hold, and she gave a tiny, breathless nod and then glanced up at the entryway, both a little worried and a little hopeful that 3PO would burst in shrieking about how they were all doomed, and the moment would be spoiled.

There was no one in the doorway and no one coming down the passage, but all they did was sit there together and look at each other. Was he nervous, too? How could he be? 

Sitting like this, in his lap, she didn't have to look up at Han. Their faces were even, and that made her feel a little less vulnerable than when he loomed over her.

She looked down and away. “I should go,” she said in a small voice.

“Why? You have something else to do?”

She didn’t have an answer. He ran a hand up along her arm, up to her shoulder and then back down where he let it rest just north of her knee. So slow and deliberate. She leaned forward and kissed him, and his other arm went tight around her waist, pulling her closer. He started kissing her neck and that felt so good, she shifted her position a little bit on his lap, but then she could feel him getting hard underneath her, and she panicked. “Han,” she said, but that made him more excited and his hand started creeping farther up her leg. “What about the ship? You’re supposed to be—”

“Sweetheart, the ship is fine,” he said. “Look.” He leaned around her to show her the controls. “See? We’re right on course. Everything’s fine.” And he leaned in to kiss her again, but she pulled away. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Han,” she said, pleading, unable to meet his eyes. “I can’t.”

He frowned a little. “You can’t? Or you don’t want to?”

“I can’t.” She couldn’t bring herself to say that she _ did _ want to. “I’m not— I’ve never— I _ can’t_.” She took a deep breath. “It’s too fast,” she said, looking down, cheeks hot.

“That’s fine,” he said. “You could just tell me that. I can wait. I’m a patient guy.”

“Since when?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You’ve already made me wait three years, sweetheart. A little longer isn’t going to kill me.”


	15. Cloud City

When they finally reached Bespin, they were attacked. Leia had been enjoying the simple pleasure of seeing _ something _ out the window after weeks of nothing but empty space and distant stars. It didn’t hurt that the planet was beautiful: a gas giant in shades of pink, covered in thick clouds. Their destination was a station shaped like a spinning top, orbiting in the high atmosphere. The clouds surrounding it were white and pink and lavender, and it was all beautiful.

Then two small ships buzzed up alongside them, and asked them for their landing permit number, and when Han couldn’t provide one, they started shooting. That makes sense, thought Leia. That would be great to come all this way and get shot out of the sky. “I thought you knew this person?” she said.

Chewie said something she didn’t quite catch, other than the words “money" and "girl," to which Han replied “that was a long time ago. I’m sure he’s forgotten all about that.” She made a mental note to ask Chewie about it later.

They were granted clearance to land, and Han turned back to look at her, all confidence. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he insisted. “We go way back, Lando and me.”

“Who’s worried,” she replied, deadpan.

The view of the city as they made their approach was breathtaking, and they dropped through the clouds and Han set the ship down on the landing platform and then grinned at her. “See? I told you I’d get you here.”

“Yeah,” she said, distracted. “You got us here.” And then she got up and went to get her blaster.

When the hatch was opened, Han pushed her slightly behind him as he exited the ship. So he was a little wary, too. She wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad.

There was no one on the platform. “I don’t like this,” she said.

“Well, what _ would _ you like?” Han asked, aggravated. He was jumpy. He didn’t like it either. “Look, don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine. Trust me.”

She did trust him, but he’d told her himself that he couldn’t trust this man they’d come to see.

At least she was off that ship. And breathing a natural atmosphere, somehow.

A door at the other end of the platform opened and a group of people strode out of it. Leading them was a man in a cape that billowed behind him as he came forward. That was Lando Calrissian. And Han gave her another of his looks, saying “See? My friend.” He hadn’t used the word “friend” to describe his relationship with this person before, and she gave him a skeptical look while he walked down the ramp to meet their host. She stayed where she was, and so did Chewie.

The platform was windy, so she couldn’t hear was Calrissian was saying, but he looked angry, and suddenly moved like he was about to throw a punch and Leia looked at Chewie with alarm. Then, laughing, Calrissian threw his arms around Han. “Well he seems very friendly!” said C3PO.

“Yes,” said Leia. “Very friendly.” There was something off about the situation, but it was possible she was just being suspicious. 

The wind died down so she could hear Calrissian ask “What have you done to my ship?”

“_Your _ ship?” said Han. “You lost her to me, fair and square.”

So Calrissian used to own the Falcon. So why did his ships attack us? Leia thought. 

Calrissian caught sight of her and a look she recognized lit up his face. He came toward her, as if enchanted. “Hello, what have we here? Welcome.” Leia had met a lot of smooth talking ladies’ men who thought they could manipulate her by acting like this. “I’m Lando Calrissian,” he went on. “I’m the administrator of this facility. And who might you be?”

She could pretend she was taken in, but the whole performance was insulting and over the top. He must really think I’m stupid, she thought. She remembered her father telling her, when he had first proposed that she should take over his position in the Senate, that people would underestimate her because she was too young and pretty, and that being underestimated could be very useful. 

So she smiled a little bit, but let her skepticism show on her face and in her voice as she told the smooth talker her name. “Welcome, Leia,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it without breaking eye contact with her. Turn it down a little, she thought. 

Han was rescuing her, taking her hand himself and escorting her away on his arm as if they were going in to a formal dinner.

The two men were talking as they walked through the city, and they really did seem like old friends. Once or twice Calrissian made a comment to Leia, but she kept her mouth shut and let him underestimate her. She didn’t like him, and she wasn’t sure if it was just because of how he’d talked to her back at the ship or if there was something else. Han seemed unconcerned.

Calrissian led them to a luxurious suite and made a point of telling Leia that it had only two bedrooms. “I hope that’s… all right?” 

She knew she was meant to giggle and blush and either confirm or deny that she and Han were sleeping together, but her dislike of this man was growing by the minute so she just smiled tightly and said “I'm sure we'll manage.” Calrissian gave her a long, lingering glance that made her skin crawl, and Han came to stand next to her, angling his body a little as if he was shielding her from his friend. If friend was even the right word. He was probably doing it for selfish reasons, but she was grateful for it, anyway. Something was wrong here.

“I’ll have some fresh clothes sent over for you,” Calrissian went on, turning to look at the assistant who had silently trailed them from the landing platform. “You’ll see to it?” The silent man nodded and left. “And now I’m afraid I have to leave you. Business. If you need anything, anything at all, call the concierge on the comm. Everything’s on me.” He was showing off, but there was something underneath it that bothered Leia. Like he felt guilty for something, and was trying to compensate for it. 

“_Droid’s gone_,” said Chewie, when Calrissian had left.

“What?” said Leia, glancing around the room. He was right. C3PO was not with them. “Where did he go? He was with us when we got off the ship.”

Han groaned. “Who cares. He’ll turn up eventually, let’s enjoy the peace and quiet.” He threw himself down on the sofa, closing his eyes.

“Something’s wrong, Han,” said Leia.

“You’re just jumpy after being cooped up for so long,” said Han. “Trust me.”

“It’s not you I don’t trust,” she said. Then she sighed. “You think there’s a shower in this place?”

“You need me to help you find it?” Han said. “Maybe help with a few other things—”

“Shut up,” said Leia and Chewie at the same time.

She walked through one of the doors into an enormous bedroom with a bed that could have easily slept four. She closed and locked the door behind her and then found the bathroom. There was a shower, but there was also a huge bathtub made of some kind of glittery stone. It had been years since she’d had a real bath. It seemed absurdly decadent under the circumstances, but what else was she going to do? 

It was lovely. She soaked and lounged and scrubbed herself deliciously clean and smooth, and finally, finally, washed her hair. There was a little shower on the Falcon, but they’d been stingy with water so they would have enough to drink. The water was recycled, of course, but the recycling system wasn’t zero-loss. She’d washed the vital body parts every few days, but she hadn’t washed her hair the whole time. Maybe I should cut it off, she thought to herself idly, not for the first time. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to have hair down to your waist when you’re fighting a war. But it was her last little remnant of her old life. Her mother had loved her hair, how thick and dark it was. She had liked to brush and braid it herself, even though of course Leia had a droid attendant whose job it was. So she couldn’t bring herself to cut it off.

She lingered in the tub until the water started to cool, and then she supposed she’d better get out. She wrapped herself in a towel that had heated up while she bathed, and wrapped another one around her hair. Now what, she wondered. Calrissian had said he would send over some fresh clothes for them, and while she didn’t like the idea of accepting another favor from him, she only had the things she’d been wearing since Hoth, and they badly needed to be washed.

How long ago had that been? She lay down on the enormous bed and tried to remember. It seemed like a lifetime had passed. She wondered where the fleet was now. Who was still alive?

There was a knock at the bedroom door. “Hey, you in there?” called Han’s voice.

“Yeah. Yeah, um. Hang on.” She went back into the bathroom and snatched a robe that was hanging from a hook on the other side of the door. It was better than a towel, anyway. 

She opened the door a crack. “What do you want?”

He seemed a little surprised and maybe a little hurt by her tone. “What do I want? Somebody just dropped something off for you. Clean clothes, remember? You want them or not?”

She hesitated, and then let the door swing open, making sure she was holding the robe closed at the neck. He looked at her, concerned. “You’re still stressed out, huh?”

“I’m not ‘stressed out,’” she said. “I just have a really bad feeling about all this. Your friend is sleazy.”

“Well yeah. I kinda thought I made that clear to begin with. Most of the people I know are pretty sleazy.”

That, she couldn’t help but laugh at. “You said there were clothes?”

He pointed to a couple of garment bags draped over the top of the sofa. “You sure you’re in a big hurry to get dressed, because—”

“Han, please shut up.” He did, with one of his shrugs, and she snatched up the garment bags and went back into her room to dress.

The clothes were a little big, but she didn’t mind that. She chose the simplest dress, with the highest neckline and the longest sleeves. It had been a long time since she’d worn a dress.

When she went back out into the sitting area of the suite, Han was still there, flipping through something on a viewscreen. He was freshly showered too, with a little damp hair, and in clean clothes that looked exactly like his old ones. “What are you looking at?” she asked him.

“Newsfeeds,” he answered. “Nothing helpful there, though. Just propaganda.”

“Let me guess: they wiped us out and the rebellion is over.”

“Pretty much.” He turned the viewscreen so she could see it. “Guess we won’t find out the truth until we make it back to the fleet.”

“We?” she said. “I thought you were leaving.”

“Well that’s where you’re going, isn’t it? We gotta drop you off.”

“Oh.” She hoped she kept the disappointment out of her voice, but the way Han glanced up at her, she wasn’t sure she had.

“That is, assuming you know how to find the fleet,” Han said. “Do you know where they were going after the rendezvous point?”

“We were going to split up. Too dangerous for everyone to stay together. I can find them,” she said. She sat down on the sofa with her feet tucked under her. “I hate this,” she said. “I want to get out of here.”

He came to sit next to her, being careful not to get close enough to touch her. “I would have thought you’d like it here.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s nice, isn’t it? Big room, nice furniture, beautiful view. I thought you were a princess.”

“Not anymore,” she said, softly, and then, “stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, like the way that you’re looking at me.”

He laughed. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, Your Highness. You look a lot nicer when you’re clean.” She smacked him, and then, more seriously, he said, “I’ve never seen you with your hair down before.”

She touched her damp hair, which she had left down because she wanted it to dry out before she put it up. “It takes a long time to dry,” she said. And then, rushing a little, she added “On Alderaan we don’t— we always wear our hair up. Usually no one sees it down except family.”

“Family, huh?” He twirled a little lock of hair around his finger. “It’s pretty.”

“Han,” she said, in a warning tone. 

“Yeah, yeah.” He stood up. “I’m gonna go check on the ship. Make sure Lando’s guys know what they’re doing.”

“And how exactly would you be able to tell?”

“Hey, that was 3PO’s fault, _ he _ said it was fixed.”

“And where the hell is 3PO now?” she asked. “I really don’t like this, Han. Why would he wander off like that?”

“Relax,” he said. “Everything’s fine.” And he went out the door.

Everything’s not fine, thought Leia. Something is wrong.


	16. Cloud City

While Han was gone, Leia scrolled through the newsfeeds herself, but as Han had told her, there was no real information to be found there, only propaganda. She wished there was some way to get a message to someone in the fleet, to let them know she was alive, but it was too dangerous. She didn’t trust anyone here.

She brushed out her dry hair, and thought that as long as she was here, she might as well do something a little more elegant with it than the practical braided crown she usually wore. Not because Han had said it was pretty, she told herself, but just because. 

Bored and agitated, she found herself pacing in front of the huge window with the beautiful view of the clouds and the planet below. She could not shake the feeling that they were in danger here, and needed to leave immediately. Was Calrissian really having the ship repaired? Would he let them board it and leave? And where was her obnoxious droid? If he were here, he could do the obsessive worrying for her. She called the concierge Calrissian had mentioned and explained that her droid had wandered off, and could someone please look for him? But all she heard back was that no one had yet located a stray protocol droid.

After an hour or so, Han came back. “The ship is almost finished. Two or three more things and we’re in great shape.”

“The sooner the better,” she told him. “Something’s wrong here. No one has seen or knows anything about 3PO. He’s been gone too long to have gotten lost.”

Han put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her forehead. “Relax,” he told her for the hundredth time that day. She was getting really sick of hearing it. “I’ll talk to Lando and see what I can find out.”

“I don’t trust Lando,” she reminded him, for the hundredth time that day.

“Well, I don’t trust him either,” said Han. He was sure acting like he did, though, thought Leia. “But he _ is _ my friend. Besides, we’ll soon be gone.”

And Leia felt a little twist of emotion and said “and then you’re as good as gone, aren’t you?”

He looked down at her, and he seemed conflicted. She didn’t want him to go. She didn’t want what was happening between them to end. She wanted them to be together, and she hated that she wanted them to be together, because Han Solo was not the kind of guy who stuck around. She leaned her forehead into his chest because she didn’t want him to see her face.

“You could come with me,” he said, after a long moment, but of course he knew she couldn’t. “Or— I could come back. I just have to pay off this debt.” 

“Right,” she said, because she didn’t believe him, and then he just held her gently and neither of them spoke for a long time.

A while later, Chewie came through the door with 3PO — but 3PO was in pieces. 

“What happened?!” said Leia, alarmed.

The only words she was able to pick out of his response were “junk heap.”

“Found him in a junk pile?” echoed Han.

“Oh what a mess,” moaned Leia. “Chewie, do you think you can repair him?”

“Lando’s got people who can fix him,” Han pointed out.

“No thanks,” snapped Leia. It was obviously Lando’s people that had done this. So much for Han’s insistence that he didn’t trust him.

And then the door opened again and there was Lando Calrissian himself, the rat, and he looked around mildly and asked if he was interrupting anything.

“Not really,” said Leia, cold.

He gave her his sleazy smile that he evidently thought was charming, and in a voice that seemed to imply he’d never seen anything as lovely as her, he said, “You look absolutely beautiful. You truly belong with us among the clouds.”

“Thank you,” she said, cool and distant. The warning feeling on the back of her neck was getting stronger.

Still looking at Leia, he continued, “Will you join me for a little refreshment?” 

Even from several feet away, she could feel Han go tense at the invitation. I guess when he says he doesn’t trust Lando, he means he doesn’t trust him with _ me_, she thought, which was a bit sweet, if completely shortsighted.

Chewie said he was hungry, and Calrissian looked around as if he was only now remembering that there was anyone in the room besides Leia. “Everyone’s invited, of course,” he said, but it was Leia that he offered his arm to, and as much as it turned her stomach, she accepted it. As they were about to leave, Calrissian glanced down at the pieces of 3PO, and asked, innocently, “having problems with your droid?”

“No,” said Han, just as innocent. “No problem. Why?” And Leia disentangled herself from their host and took Han’s arm instead.

Calrissian was nervous about something, so he talked a lot as they walked. He kept himself right next to Leia, and she tightened her grip on Han’s arm. Her sense that they were danger here was getting stronger and stronger with every step they took. Couldn’t Han feel it? Couldn’t Chewie? They were walking into something terrible, she was sure of it, and the closer they got to wherever Calrissian was taking them the more she wanted to just grab Han and run and tell him they had to leave, right now, they had to get on the ship, and she didn’t even care if the hyperdrive was working or not, they had to go, they had to go _ right now_. Last chance, she thought, as the doors to the dining room opened, and there, at the head of the long table, was Darth Vader.

Han didn’t even hesitate; he shoved her behind him and started shooting, but he was shooting at Darth Vader, so it didn’t matter. The blaster was out of his hand and in Vader’s in a moment, and then Vader set it on the table, and said, in a way that was formal and calm, “we would be honored if you would join us.”

And Leia felt oddly calm, and almost relieved to finally know what the problem was. Han looked back at Calrissian, who replied, “I had no choice. They arrived right before you did. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” said Han. Sorry that he’d believed in his friend, thought Leia. Sorry that he didn’t listen to me.

Calrissian went out and the door closed behind him, and then Leia and Han and Chewie were alone with Darth Vader. Han looked at her, stricken, apologetic, and she squeezed his hand. She’d thought that if she were ever in a room with Vader again that she would be a mess, but instead she was calm. The edges of everything felt sharp and clear. There were opportunities here, she thought. She just had to find them.

“Please, sit down,” said Vader, still curiously formal, as if he were really inviting them to dinner. “What a pleasure it is to see you again, Your Highness. It’s been too long.”

“I disagree,” said Leia as she sat down, speaking in the same cool, formal way that Vader was. Every inch the princess.

“And this must be Captain Solo,” Vader went on. “I must say, I expected that the man who managed to take my own ship down would be a bit more ... impressive.”

Han said nothing. His hand was cold. She understood. He was out of his element. She was the one who would have to get them out of this, and that was okay. He’d saved her enough times.

Although she couldn’t see his face, she felt as if Vader were looking at her with a great deal of interest. “Do you know, Princess, I really am quite glad to see you again. Our last visit was so very interesting.” And then he didn’t speak out loud, but she could still hear him, in her head. “_You seem quite gifted. I’m looking forward to exploring that_.” And a chill ran through her.


	17. Cloud City

They were separated. She was taken to a room alone, and there were stormtroopers there, but they didn’t do much to her as long as she kept quiet. She tried all her tricks, all the things Cassian had taught her and what she’d learned herself, but all it got her were the butts of their blaster rifles in her ribs and stomach, so she decided to keep her mouth shut.

When, eventually, Vader came through the door, she again felt that curious sense of relief that at least she wasn’t going to be kept waiting any longer. Vader dismissed the stormtroopers and she was alone with him. At least he doesn't have his mind probe, she thought. She had a lot more valuable information in her mind now than she’d had the last time. No you don’t, she told herself. You don’t know anything, and you can’t tell him anything.

For a moment he only stood there, and then she felt a horrifying creeping presence inside her mind and she pushed back against it as hard as she possibly could. “Interesting,” said Vader. “Very interesting.”

She didn’t understand what was so interesting about it. Vader tried to invade her mind again, and again she pushed him away. It went on like this for some time. It was exhausting.

"Now, Princess," said Vader. "I'm going to ask you some questions, and you are going to refuse to answer them. Don't tell me a lie," he continued. "Just refuse to answer. Do you understand?"

She didn't understand, and she didn't answer.

She was expecting questions about the location of the rebel fleet, but instead he asked about Luke. "How long have you known Luke Skywalker?" She wanted to tell him a lie, just because he'd told her not to, but all she did was stare at the pattern in the floor. Then she could feel Vader rummaging around in her mind for the answer.

"You're not really trying," he said. "I'm disappointed. You are usually so uncooperative. Let's try one last test." And then she could see Han, being tortured, and his screams were echoing through her mind, but not in her ears.

This was _ real_, she realized. This was what they were doing to Han, right now. "Stop!" she shouted. "He doesn't know anything."

She tried to shove the image out of her head, and it faded, but didn’t go away entirely. She closed her eyes, concentrated, pressed back against it as hard as she could, but she was too weak. She couldn’t do it. The image faded away on its own, and she gasped and tried to catch her breath.

“You have a rare talent, Princess,” said Vader. “You should be proud. I think that’s enough for today.”

Enough of what, she thought, exhausted. What just happened?

The stormtroopers escorted her from that room to a cell in the lower decks of Cloud City. They shoved her through the door and she heard it close and lock behind her. Chewie was there, and the pieces of C3PO, and Han was lying on the platform that served as a bunk. At least they were all together, she thought, dazed, as she stumbled across the floor. All she wanted was to check on Han. She knelt down next to him and ran her fingers through his hair. He was conscious, but out of it. “They didn’t even ask me any questions,” he said, bewildered. 

A moment later the door opened again. “Lando,” said Leia, with contempt and a little alarm.

“Get out of here, Lando,” Han snarled, trying to sit up, but failing. 

“Shut up and listen,” snapped Calrissian. “Vader’s agreed to hand Leia and Chewie over to me.”

“Over to _ you_?” said Han, nearly as contemptuously as Leia had spoken earlier.

“They’ll have to stay here, but at least they’ll be safe,” said Calrissian. 

Yeah, right, thought Leia. Vader had said “that’s enough for today,” meaning there were more days to come. Calrissian might believe what he was saying, but that just meant he was being lied to.

“What about Han?” she demanded.

Calrissian paused, before admitting, “Vader’s giving him to the bounty hunter.”

Leia shook her head. “Vader wants us _ all _ dead.”

“He doesn’t want you at all,” said Calrissian. “He’s after somebody called Skywalker.”

“Luke?” Han did manage to sit up now. Leia felt her heart clench. So Luke was alive.

“Vader’s set a trap for him,” Calrissian continued. 

“And we’re the bait,” she finished. That’s why they hadn’t asked questions. They weren’t after information. They just wanted to lure Luke here. He would know what was happening to them, somehow, through the Force, and he would rush here to save them, because that was what Luke did.

“Well, he’s on his way.”

Han was furious. “Perfect. You fixed us all pretty good, didn’t you? My _ friend_.” He made it to his feet, still unsteady, and punched Calrissian in the face. Lando responded in kind, and the guards who had accompanied him into the room hit Han with their rifles and he fell. Chewie started for the guards and they pointed the blasters at him and things were about to get really out of hand, thought Leia, they’re just going to get themselves killed for nothing.

“Stop!” Calrissian shouted. “I’ve done all that I can,” he went on, fast and clipped. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t do better, but I’ve got my own problems.”

“Yeah,” growled Han from the floor. “You’re a real hero.”

Calrissian and the guards left, and then they were alone. “You certainly have a way with people,” said Leia, as she and Chewie helped Han to his feet. His face was bleeding and she tried to staunch it.

“Yeah,” he said, sitting back down on the platform. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

“I’m all right,” she told him, gently. “Don’t worry about me.”

“_I’m all right, too, if anyone cares_,” said Chewie.

Leia looked at him apologetically, and then her legs gave out and Chewie caught her as she fell, and he gently set her up on the bunk next to Han. “_You should sleep_,” he told them. “_I work on droid_.” 

“They gave you tools?” said Leia.

Chewie shrugged. _ “Not much. He feels bad.” _

“He doesn’t feel bad enough,” said Han. “You take the bunk,” he said to Leia. “I can sleep on the floor. There’s not much difference anyway.”

“No,” said Leia. “Lie down.” And she curled up next to him with her head on his chest.

She didn’t really want to fall asleep, because she knew she would have a nightmare, so for a long time she just lay there with her eyes closed while he slept. She thought about all those wasted nights on the Falcon when she could have been lying next to him like this, sleeping in his arms. Pretty soon, one or both of them would be dead, and she’d never have the chance to do the things with him that she had so badly wanted to do, and had been so afraid of doing. Why had she thought she had so much time?

When the exhaustion finally overtook her, she dreamed about Han screaming and then Luke was also screaming, and she was running through dark corridors trying to find them, but everything seemed to shift and turn under her feet so even though she could hear them, just around the next corner, she never found them. She woke up because Han was shaking her. “Hey, hey, Leia, it’s okay, wake up, I’m here, I’m here.”

“What?” she said, confused and still half asleep.

“You were dreaming,” he said. “And talking in your sleep a little. I’m right here. Everything’s all right.”

“‘Everything’s all right’ seems like an overstatement,” she said, as the memory of where she was and what was happening came back. Chewie grunted in agreement. “What did I say?” She was curious. She didn’t know that she talked in her sleep.

“You just kept asking where I was,” he said. “‘Han, where are you?’ That kind of thing. I gotta say, Princess, if you’re going to dream about me, I’d prefer it not be a nightmare.”

She gave a hollow laugh. “So would I, Captain. Say, do you think Lando feels guilty enough to bring me back my other clothes? I’m sick of this thing; and it’s hell to fight a battle in a dress.”

“I seem to remember you did all right last time,” he said, warm and loving. “Anyway, you really think we’re going to be fighting any battles? We’re pretty well trapped here and we’ve got no weapons.”

“I seem to remember we did all right last time,” she replied, echoing his words. “You think this is more hopeless than me alone on the Death Star? There’s way less security here, there’s tons of exits, and the city is huge; I bet there’s plenty of places we could hide. We just have to catch a couple of lucky breaks. We can steal a ship and make a run for it.”

“Steal a ship?” said Han. “Leave my baby behind?”

“You can’t really think they fixed the hyperdrive, Han? And it’ll be more well guarded than any other ship besides Vader’s own.”

“And what’s your plan for getting us out of this cell?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “I was going to make it up as I go along. Since when is that a problem for you?” 

“I thought I was the crazy one here,” said Han, but he was saying it with admiration.

“But if Lando does feel guilty about betraying us,” she said, thinking out loud, “that’s an opportunity.”

“He doesn’t feel guilty,” said Han. You heard him say he’d made a deal that was going to keep the Empire out of here forever.”

Leia hadn’t heard him say that, because she hadn’t been listening very closely to Calrissian, which was a mistake. “I guess we’ll see,” she said. “Anyway, it doesn’t hurt anything to have a little hope.”


	18. Cloud City

She did ask for her clothes back, and they did bring them to her, freshly cleaned. She gave Han a pointed look and he rolled his eyes as he turned around so she could change. She turned her back to him, too, but even with everything happening, she felt a little flicker of excitement at the idea that he might look back anyway.

Back in her own clothes, she felt more like herself. This wasn’t an impossible situation, she thought. They weren’t dead yet. 

“Okay,” she said. “What do we have that we can use, here? Chewie, you’ve got your tools.”

“_Not exactly weapons_,” said Chewie.

“No, not exactly. But it’s not nothing. And you’ve got 3PO back up and running.”

“Sort of,” said Han. 3PO was indeed still in several pieces, but he was awake and could talk, at least. “I don’t know how much good he’s going to do us anyway,” he added, which wasn’t a bad point, since 3PO’s primary contribution to their party was having loud anxiety spirals while they were trying to work.

Leia shrugged. “He can still communicate with the computers. It’s something. When we escape, he can get us a map of the station.”

“When we escape,” said Han. “Yeah.” It was not like Han to be so pessimistic. He _ had _ trusted Lando, no matter how many times he said he didn’t. At least he’d trusted him enough not to do _ this_. He’d never have brought them here if he didn’t. He didn’t say it, but he blamed himself.

“You need to pull it together,” she told him. “I need you with me, here. We can do this. We’ve done more impossible things, how many times? It’s not over until it’s over. Han,” she said again, urgently. “I need you.” He met her eyes and nodded.

“Yes sir,” he said, and there was the old Han again, the real Han. The Han she had just in this instant realized that she was in love with. He leaned over to kiss her and she pulled away, indicating Chewie with a tilt of her head. Han rolled his eyes. “Hey Chewie, will you close your eyes for a minute so I can kiss this girl?” he asked. “She’s too shy.”

“_Okay_,” said Chewie. “_But only because we’re in jail_.”

“Thanks buddy,” Han said, and then she let him kiss her, because she loved him, and because she might never get another chance.

“Oh how _ can _ you do that when we’re doomed? We’re doomed!” C3PO cried.

“_If you don’t shut up, I’ll take your head back off_,” said Chewie, and 3PO shut up.

Sitting on the floor, Leia was trying to trace a map of the parts of the station that she’d been to, but the place was huge, and she’d barely seen any of it. She’d questioned the others about where they had been while she was sitting around in the suite, but it wasn’t a very helpful exercise. She drummed her fingers on the ground impatiently, and Han covered her hand with his. She gave him a tight smile.

“You come up with a plan yet?” he asked.

She sighed. “Not really. Can’t come up with a plan until we’re out of here.”

“And then we’ll be guarded.”

“Yeah. But stormtroopers aren’t very smart, as a rule,” she said. “If it’s just them…” 

They were sitting on the floor with their backs against a wall, and Han held her hand in his lap. Chewie had made a big show of telling them that he was going to take a nap now, so he’d be well rested when they made their escape, so it was just the two of them. And 3PO, but they’d turned him to face a wall and threatened to shut his power down if he said a word. So it was, more or less, like being alone. She let her head fall onto Han’s shoulder and he let go of her hand so he could put his arm around her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is my fault. I should have listened to you. You knew Lando was up to something and I didn’t listen.”

“You couldn’t have done anything,” she said. “They knew we were coming here, somehow. They got here first. It was already too late, even before we landed.”

“Yeah, well. I’m still the guy who brought you here.”

“You brought me somewhere you thought we’d be safe. Where else were we going to go?” She didn’t like listening to Han talk like this.

They were quiet for a moment, and then, haltingly, Han said, “Leia… I wanted to tell you…”

“Don’t,” she said, and then she kissed him, soft and slow. When she pulled away, she told him, “you can tell me when we’re out of here.”

He hesitated. She knew he was thinking that they probably weren’t going to get out of here. There’s still a chance, she thought. I can do this. I can save us. But if he told her that he loved her, she would crack open, and then everything would be lost. She had to hope. Rebellions are built on hope, she thought. Cassian’s line. How long ago had that been? She’d been like a little girl.

“Leia…” He was trying again and she kissed him again to shut him up.

“Tell me later,” she said. “When we’re safe. Promise?”

He nodded. “Yeah,” he said, slowly. “I promise.” And he didn’t try to say it again.

When they finally came for them, it was six stormtroopers and the bounty hunter. Chewie strapped the pieces of 3PO to his back, and they were marched through the station. They didn’t bother binding their hands, so there was an opportunity there, thought Leia. She memorized the path they took. They were going down into the industrial areas, where the gas they mined here was processed. She watched for her opportunity. There was one, there had to be one. There was always an opportunity.

_You keep taking chances, until you run out,_ she heard Cassian tell her, so long ago. And then _ he’d _ run out of chances, and had died on a beach in some other woman's arms.

Where they finally ended up was a large chamber full of machinery that Leia didn’t recognize. Vader was there, and so was Calrissian. “What’s going on?” asked Han. “_Buddy_?”

Calrissian flinched, just barely, and he didn’t look at any of them. “You’re being put into carbon freeze,” he replied.

What the hell does that mean, thought Leia, and then she heard Vader tell the bounty hunter that he would be compensated if Han died. 

They were starting to take Han away when Chewie started throwing punches. What kind of idiots don’t bind their prisoners’ hands, thought Leia. But Han was shouting at Chewie to stop, and for whatever reason, Vader let him come back over, and instead of joining the fight, he stopped it. “Chewie, this won’t help me,” he said. And then Leia understood that Han had given up. Han was still talking to Chewie, intense and firm. “The princess,” he said. “You have to take care of her now. You hear me?” And Chewie howled yes.

I don’t want him to take care of me, thought Leia, wildly. I want Han. I want Han. And then he turned to her and kissed her and she kissed him back until he was dragged away to the platform, and as they dragged him away, his eyes never left her face, and at the last moment, just before the platform took him down into the chamber where he would be frozen she told him she loved him, because she didn’t want to wait until he visited her in a dream someday after he was dead. But she’d made him promise not to say that to her until they were both safe, so with a small, sad smile, all he said was “I know.” And then he was gone.


	19. Cloud City

Han was alive. Or so said Calrissian. Where Han had been was a coffin-like slab of carbonite, with Han’s face carved into it like a relief. Leia stared down at it in disbelief. They were supposed to escape. She was supposed to save them. They always escaped. But there was Han, in the slab, frozen, but alive.

Chewie’s hands were bound now, but Leia’s were still free. She tried to think of something to do with them but all she could think of now was Han’s sad little smile as he had gone into the carbon freezing device. 

Then she heard someone tell Vader that Luke was here, and things snapped back into focus. Luke was here. She was still alive, and Chewie was still alive, and Han wasn’t dead, even if he wasn’t exactly alive, either.

“Calrissian,” said Vader. “Take the princess and the Wookiee to my ship.”

Calrissian objected. “You said they’d be left here under my supervision!”

Poor fool, thought Leia. He really believed that? 

“I am altering the deal,” said Vader. “Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

Stormtroopers escorted them along, and Leia had the feeling that they had been instructed to keep Lando in line just as much as to keep her and Chewie from escaping. She kept looking for an opening. Something she could use to get away. But there was nothing.

Until she saw Luke — actually saw Luke! — down another hallway. She screamed at him, “Luke don’t, it’s a trap! It’s a trap!” but a stormtrooper dragged her away and she knew that it didn’t matter anyway. Luke had known it was a trap before he came.

Their march continued. Leia considered trying to grab a blaster out of one of the stormtroopers’ hands and making a break for it. She’d probably get shot, but it might work. But there was Chewie to consider. Leaving him behind was out of the question. The stormtroopers had belatedly put binders on him after the scene at the freezing chamber, so he’d have a hard time fighting; and besides even if they got away, 3PO would give their location away immediately. No. It wasn’t worth the risk. But there had to be _ something_.

To her surprise, “something” turned out to be Lando Calrissian’s own men, who, along with the silent aide who had always tailed his boss, attacked and disarmed their guards. He put a blaster in Leia’s hand, and then he and his men marched the stormtroopers away. As Calrissian turned his attention to Chewie’s bound hands, Leia demanded to know what the hell he thought he was doing.

“We’re getting out of here,” Calrissian said, tightly. He freed Chewie’s hands, which immediately wrapped around his throat.

“Do you think that after what you did to Han that we’re going to _ trust _ you?” 

“I had no choice,” choked out Lando.

“Oh we understand, don’t we, Chewie? _ He had no choice_,” Leia spit the words out. We don’t have time for this, she thought. But if Lando thought he was going to make an about face, now that the damage had been done, she was going to make damn sure that he knew who was in charge here.

“I’m just trying to help,” he could hardly get the words out.

“We don’t need your help,” she said. But they sure could use it. If he was sincere. She better not let Chewie actually kill him. She gave the Wookiee a significant glance.

Calrissian was trying to say something else, but Chewie’s stranglehold on him was too tight. 3PO suggested that it sounded like he was trying to say “Han,” so Chewie loosened his grip enough for Lando to gasp out, “there’s still a chance to save Han. At the east platform.”

Leia and Chewie looked at each other, Chewie dropped Lando, and they started running.

Calrissian caught up with them eventually, although he was still wheezing. Good, thought Leia. Let him remember that. She didn’t have a lot of time to think, but she could feel that what had happened to Han had shaken the man up and disturbed him. So he wants to make up for it now, she thought. Good luck with that. She would hate the man for the rest of her life. Which might not be long, she thought.

At some point R2D2 arrived. He must have come with Luke. But where was Luke now? Down in the freezing chamber, with Vader? 

They were too late for Han, by a matter of minutes. If you hadn’t spent all that time arguing with Lando, she thought. If you had let him speak to begin with. You could have made it in time. And now, even as she was watching the bounty hunter’s ship leave, there were stormtroopers coming up behind them, firing.

She could deal with a firefight, but this was a particularly bad position to be in one. None of that mattered right now, though. All she wanted to do was kill somebody, and if she couldn’t kill Vader and she couldn’t kill the bounty hunter, these stormtroopers would do. So even as Lando was shouting at them to get to the elevator with him, Leia and Chewie just kept shooting.

_ You’re going to die out here if you don’t move right now. _ It was Amilyn she heard in her mind. _ What’s that going to accomplish? Go! _

And she grabbed Chewie and they ran through the carnage to the elevator. 

“Okay,” said Leia. “Who’s got a bright idea now?”

“South platform,” said Lando. “That’s where the Falcon is.”

“The Falcon?” said Leia. “You can’t be serious. What about the hyperdrive?”

“We fixed the hyperdrive!”

If Leia was sure of anything, it was that they had _ not _ fixed the hyperdrive. “Why would you actually fix the ship if you were always planning on giving us to Vader?”

Lando looked uncomfortable. “Well, she is my ship. I mean she was. I love that ship,” he said defensively.

“You are unbelievable,” said Leia. “You’re lucky I don’t kill you right now.”

“_We still could_,” said Chewie.

“Plenty of time to kill him after he gets us out of here,” said Leia. 

Calrissian shifted, nervously.

They had to fight their way to the ship, but they did reach it. Chewie sat in his usual place and Leia sat in the captain’s chair. Han’s chair. Are we actually going to pull this off? Leia asked herself. But the air in the ship still smelled of him, and she thought: Almost.

They were in the air; they were almost free, when she felt Luke calling her. She didn’t know how she knew that was what was happening, but she was more certain than she’d ever been of anything. Luke needed her. And if they could save him, they had to.

“Chewie,” she said. “We have to go back.”

“_What_?” Chewie and Calrissian spoke at the same time.

“I know where Luke is.” She had to make Chewie understand. She had to.

“What about those fighters?” cried Lando.

“_He has a point_,” Chewie told her. “_You sure_?” 

“Chewie, just do it!” Which was what Han would have said when he wanted to do something that seemed like a bad idea, and Chewie nodded and started to turn the ship.

“But what about Vader?” shouted Calrissian.

Chewie turned his head and growled, “_you’re not in charge here. She is_.”

And Leia scanned the window nervously and hoped she knew what she was doing. “Down underneath, Chewie. Right at the base.”

“Someone’s up there,” said Lando, in shock.

“It’s Luke. Chewie, slow down. Slow down and we’ll get under him. Lando, go open the top hatch.”

Calrissian was about to protest, but she gave him a steely look. “You are going to go up there and save my friend, or you are going to get pushed out a hatch yourself.”

“_Hope you know what you’re doing_,” said Chewie.

“Me too.” She and Chewie shared a look. How many times had she had that same exchange with Han? A stab of pain went through her. No time, no time. Survival first, then grief. 

Lando’s voice came over the comm. “Okay, let’s go.”

Chewie wasted no time.

Lando brought Luke into the cockpit, for some reason. Luke was in bad shape. Maybe worse than right after he was attacked on Hoth and he and Han had spent the night outside. There was that stab of pain again. Leia put her arm under him to support him, and took him back down the passage toward the nearest crew bunk. He was barely conscious, mumbling and moaning, and it looked like he’d been beaten very badly. She grabbed the medkit and sat with him to take stock of his injuries and see what she could do. As she patted him down, she discovered that one of his hands had been severed. Okay, that’s priority one, she thought. The injury looked like it was partially cauterized; a lightsaber injury, she thought. He’d still probably lost quite a lot of blood, but it wasn’t as bad as if it had been machinery or a blade. There wasn’t time to clean the wound, but she wrapped a protective cuff around it. The next thing was an injection of a drug that would ease the pain and let him sleep. Then she knew she had to go back up to the cockpit and find out what was happening. She kissed his forehead. “I’ll be back,” she promised.

When she entered, Chewie said, without taking his eyes off his piloting, “_Luke_?” 

“Alive,” was all she said, sitting down in her usual seat, since Calrissian was in Han’s now.

Chewie and Lando were looking at something that had just shown up on the radar. Leia knew exactly what it was, and her heart sank. A star destroyer. 

“Ready for lightspeed,” said Calrissian.

“_If _ your people fixed the hyperdrive,” muttered Leia, still unconvinced. She saw the green light flip on. “All the coordinates are set. It’s now or never.” Please work, please work, please work, she thought.

It didn’t. Leia almost started laughing. Of _ course _ it didn’t. Chewie yowled “_What the fuck, Lando_?”

“They told me they fixed it,” said Calrissian, sounding genuinely baffled. “I trusted them to fix it. It’s not my fault!” 

Chewie was already on his feet, on his way to look at the problem, and he shoved Lando, hard, on his way out.

She would have liked to shoot Lando then and there, but he could fly the ship better than she could, so she would just have to wait. Sparks exploded out of the control panel, which seemed pretty bad.

Then Luke stumbled back into the cockpit, wrapped up in a blanket. How was he even awake, much less upright and moving? “It’s Vader,” he said, like a man in a trance. 

Then, with no warning, the ship made the jump into hyperspace.


	20. The Millennium Falcon

For a moment, no one said anything, and then Leia said “I hope wherever we wind up is open space.” They’d been in one place when the computer had done the calculations, and somewhere else when they’d actually jumped. They might land anywhere.

“Hey, we’re alive, though,” said Lando, turning to her with relief written all over his features.

“Some of us are,” she said coldly.

“Han’s alive, Leia, I promise. I heard his heart beating myself.”

“You don’t call me Leia,” she said. “My friends call me Leia. Scumbags who sell me and my friends out to the Empire call me General Organa.” It was a title she had just spontaneously given herself. Though she had seen plenty of combat, she wasn’t formally part of the Alliance military. But she didn’t want to hear Calrissian call her “your highness,” and “Leia” was out of the question. General might be a bit of an overreach, but her father had been General Organa, and she liked the way it sounded.

“I hope you don’t think that this makes up for what you did,” she continued. “If you can get him back in one piece, maybe I’ll think about forgiving you.”

“Well. At least you’re not talking about killing me anymore?”

“Don’t push your luck, _ Lando_. Now get the hell out of my cockpit. I need to get Luke settled, and I don’t trust you in here without Chewie to keep an eye on you.”

He hesitated a moment, but all he said was “yes ma’am,” and hustled out of the cockpit.

She helped Luke along the corridor to get him back in the bunk. How he’d ever gotten out of it, as injured as he was and with the painkillers in his system, was beyond her, but he allowed himself to be guided out of the cockpit. Partway down the corridor, they met Chewie on his way back up. “_Not in bed_?” said Chewie.

Leia shook her head. She was a small woman, and Luke could barely support himself, and just the effort of moving him this far had exhausted her. Chewie picked him up and carried him back to the bunk. “_Stay in bed_,” he said. “_Sleep_.” 

“I’ll stay with him,” said Leia. “You need to go back up to the cockpit; we don’t know where we might end up when we drop out of lightspeed.”

Chewie nodded. “_We have time. Journey takes an hour. You need help_.” 

“It’s okay, Chewie. I’ve got it.” She was sitting with Luke’s head in her lap. “He’ll be okay, I think. If we can get him to a medical facility.” 

“_You were right_,” said Chewie.

“About what?”

“_You got us out_.” 

“Not all of us.” And then she started to cry, and so did Chewie, awkwardly trying to wrap his big arms around her while she was sitting with Luke.

Then Chewie, still sniffling, said “_Han still alive. We can find him. Still save him._”

She nodded, wiping her tears away on her sleeve. “We will.”

“_Bounty hunter take him to Tatooine. Jabba the Hutt there. Jabba not kill him right away. Not his style_.” 

“What is his style?”

Chewie shrugged. “_Other things. Not good things. But not dead. You hear bounty hunter. No money if Han dead. So Han alive_.” He paused a minute. “_You understand me? Too many words_?” 

“I understand you,” she said. 

He nodded, relieved. “_You know Shryiiwook very good now. I talk too fast, you tell me. We’re partners now_.” He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently, and then went to the cockpit.

Luke was still moving around in the bunk, half conscious. “Luke,” she said softly. “You need to rest.”

“Can’t,” he said, and then, as if he were surprised that she was there, “Leia?” 

“Yeah, it’s me, Luke. You’re safe. You’re on the Falcon.”

“You heard me…” he said. “I called for you and you came.”

She stroked his hair. “I heard you,” she agreed.

He closed his eyes and she thought he was going to drift off into sleep at last but then he said, “what about Han? Where is he, I can’t feel him.”

She swallowed back the tears that threatened to spill over. “Han’s… he’s not here. He’s not here right now.”

“I was too late,” moaned Luke. “I was too late to save you.”

“Shh… Just try to sleep now,” she said.

“But you love him…”

Her voice broke a little as she said “yeah. I love him.” A few tears slid down her face and she tried to contain the urge to sob again.

“Good,” he said. “Good. I knew it.”

She started laughing, which only made her cry harder. “I guess everyone knew before I did.” She was laughing and sobbing at the same time. She loved Han. She loved him. And he was _ gone_. How could she be on the Falcon without him? How could there still _ be _ a Falcon without him?

“Go to sleep Luke,” she whispered, through her tears. “Go to sleep.” 

As he finally drifted off, Leia dried her tears and took a deep, shaky breath. She still had more work to do. She had to find the fleet, and she had to do it before Luke died, which seemed like a very real possibility. Survival first, she thought. Then grief.

She ran over the evacuation plans from Hoth. It felt so long ago. If things had gone according to plan, they should be split up into four factions: although they had referred to “the” rendezvous point during the evacuation, there had actually been three. The captains and pilots had each thought the one they’d been assigned was the only one, and there were supposed to be members of High Command at each rendezvous. Then there was Ackbar’s portion of the fleet, which hadn’t been on Hoth at all. That’s where Amilyn is, she thought. I miss her.

So. Step one was to get to the rendezvous that she was supposed to be at weeks ago. The fleet wouldn’t still be there, but they would have left something behind for stragglers. Leia was on the council and should have been told the next destination, but she was also the most junior member of High Command. Much like her time as the youngest-ever senator, she didn’t necessarily command respect in the eyes of some of her more senior colleagues.

Particularly not when she was given to having public screaming matches with roguish starship captains in hallways, she thought, wincing. 

Checking that Luke was asleep, she went to talk to her pilot.


	21. Classified Location

The rebel cruiser was the most beautiful sight she’d ever laid eyes on. Home, she thought. Home at last. It was an odd thought to have about a ship she’d never set foot on before, but it was home nonetheless. It was where her people were.

A few X-wings approached and hovered in the space between the Falcon and the cruiser, and a signal came over the comm.

“Millennium Falcon, confirm your identity.”

“This is Leia Organa,” she said, giving one of her authorization codes. "I have Commander Skywalker here. He’s badly injured and needs immediate medical attention.”

There was a pause on the other end, then, “you’re cleared to approach, Your Highness. See you soon.”

Chewie brought them in to the landing bay. Leia heaved a huge sigh of relief and looked over at the Wookiee. “Nice flying.”

“_You fly next time_,” he said. “_You need the practice_.”

She laughed, and stood up. “Time to get back to work.”

They took Luke away to the medical bay immediately. After he had finally fallen into unconsciousness, he hadn’t woken up again, although he had occasionally called out “Ben” or “Leia” or “father” in a plaintive wail. He’ll be okay now, thought Leia.

The party who came to greet them included General Rieekan, whom she had never expected to see again. He was not an emotionally demonstrative man, but the voice with which he greeted her was thick with emotion. “Your Highness. I didn’t think I would see you again.” 

“I didn’t think I’d see you again either, General.” She shook his hand, warmly. “I’m glad we were both wrong.”

He looked around, nodded to Chewbacca, and his gaze landed on Lando. “And your new friend?”

“Not a friend,” said Leia. “Put him in the brig.”

“What?!” shouted Lando as the guards immediately took him by the arms and bound his hands behind him.

“I’m grateful for the help escaping, Calrissian, but you can’t be trusted to wander around free on this ship. It’s too risky. Don’t worry,” she added. “It’ll be much nicer than yours was for us.”

“But Leia— I mean General Organa—” He was marched away, sending pleading eyes over at Leia, who ignored him.

Rieekan raised an eyebrow at her, asking a question without really asking, but she shook her head. “I’m ravenous, General. Can I fill you in over a meal?”

“Dinner with the princess? I’d be a fool to pass that up.” He led her down the corridor, with Chewie and the droids trailing behind. “Did he call you…?”

“I may have given myself a small promotion,” she said.

“I’ll bring something in,” he said, taking her to a briefing room. “I get the feeling this isn’t a conversation you want to have in the public mess.”

She nodded, with a sad smile. Alderaanian thoughtfulness. “Thank you, General.” 

When he got back, she sighed. “Solo’s not dead. You’ve had that question all over your face since I landed.”

Rieekan looked cautiously relieved at the news that Han was still alive. “Where is he?”

“Well that’s… it’s a long story. I don’t know where to start.”

“The last communication we had from either of you was that you couldn’t make it to our transport and he was going to take you out on the Falcon,” said Rieekan. “I should have walked you to that ship myself,” he added, rueful. “If your father were here, he’d never forgive me.”

“If my father were here, he’d put the blame where it belongs,” she replied. “On me. He knew better than anyone that I don’t do what I’m told.” 

She explained about the Falcon’s hyperdrive problem, and Han’s ingenious idea about the garbage dump, and how they’d undertaken a long, gruelling journey to see his old friend at Bespin.

“That would be the gentleman you had me throw in the brig?” Rieekan asked.

“I wouldn’t call him a gentleman,” she said. “He’s in that brig for a damn good reason. He sold us out. Somehow… a bounty hunter tracked us there. I don’t know how. Someone working for Jabba the Hutt and Vader both. Vader got to Bespin before we did. Calrissian put on a whole song and dance for us, like he’s so happy to see Han, and puts us in this luxury suite. It must have been some game Vader was playing, I don’t know. Maybe Calrissian can tell us.”

“We’ll certainly have some questions for him,” said Rieekan, grim. “Then what?”

“Then Vader shows up, and… well, let’s skip over that bit. You know what happens when he gets his hands on people. But they never tried to get any information out of us. That was the strange thing. No questions about where the fleet was, nothing.”

Rieekan’s brow furrowed. “That _ is _ strange.”

“It was all about Luke,” she said. “He was trying to get Luke there. I don’t know where Luke has been,” she said. “But he can… he can see things, you know, with the Force. His father was a Jedi.”

The general nodded. Everyone knew Luke’s father had been a Jedi.

“Then… they decided to use this carbon freezing thing… I don’t know why, but they put Han— They put Captain Solo in there, to test it out, I guess. To see if someone could survive being frozen that way. And he did. So he’s not dead.” She was speaking very quickly and very tightly now, because she couldn’t afford to break down in front of the general. “But the bounty hunter took him away.” She swallowed. That had been the hardest part of the story, and she’d made it through.

“After that, Lando had a change of heart, decided to help us escape. We managed to grab Luke, and here we are. But you see why I don’t want that man walking around free on this ship.”

“Incredible,” said the general. “If I hadn’t known you as long as I have, I’d never believe this story. What’s your plan for Calrissian? I’ll back you.”

“Let him stew in there for a couple of days,” said Leia. “Then I’m putting him and Chewie on the Millennium Falcon and they’re going to go find Captain Solo for us.”

“And then?”

“And then I’m going to bring him home.”


	22. Classified Location

Luke was going to be fine. It was going to take a while, but other than the loss of his hand, there was no permanent damage, and a mechanical hand was already being fitted for him. He just needed rest to gather strength before surgery. 

They did not seem to have been tracked from Bespin; Rieekan’s men scanned the Falcon thoroughly but there were no transmissions being made, and two days later, they had not been set upon by Star Destroyers. It seemed uncharacteristically careless of Darth Vader not to have put a tracker on the ship, but they hadn’t found anything, and Leia didn’t have that nagging feeling that warned her of danger.

Leia finally went down to see Lando on the second day. He was slumped down on the floor of the cell, looking depressed. “Hey, cheer up, Lando,” she said. “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s not that bad? It’s prison!”

“Nice big cell,” she said. “Comfortable temperature. Nobody torturing you. They even gave you a blanket. What else do you want?”

“Hey, I put you in a luxury suite!”

“Yeah, well, we’re fresh out of those.”

“I know you’re upset—”

“Shut up, Lando.”

“I’ve known Han more than ten years; you think I _ wanted _ to do any of that? There were thousands of people in that city and I was responsible for them. I was trying to protect them. Was I supposed to put one man over all those other lives? Vader would have just killed me and taken you anyway, and then you’d never have gotten away.”

As angry as she still was with him, she knew that he had a point. When someone like Darth Vader shows up at your door, you don’t have any good options. He’d been naive to think he could really protect Cloud City; once the Empire knew you could be counted on, they’d never stop making “deals” with you. 

“You were never going to be able to protect those people, Calrissian,” she said. “You can’t make deals with the Empire. The more you cooperate the more they demand, and it ends up just the same as if you had refused in the beginning.”

“Yeah, well,” he said, bitter. “I know that now.” He gave her a hard look. “So what would you have done?”

“Got myself killed, probably.”

“You always fight back, huh? I see why Han likes you so much; you’re crazy. So what now? You leave me in this cell to die?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic, Lando. You’re not going to die here. Chewie’s going over the Falcon, making sure your people didn’t leave any other surprises for us. When he’s done, you and he are going to go find Han.”

“Seriously?"

“Seriously. I told you, if you want to make it up to me, you’ll get him back in one piece.”

Lando looked at her with a peculiar expression on his face. “I guess you really meant what you said, at the platform?”

“Shut up, Lando.” She stood to leave. “I’m sorry we brought Darth Vader to your door. I’m sure you thought you were picking the best of bad options. You’ll be out of here in a couple of days.”

“Don’t you think you’ve made your point?” asked Lando. “Do you really think I need to be locked up down here?”

“Ship’s pretty crowded, Calrissian. This is more comfortable than where a lot of our people are sleeping.”

Then she went to check on Luke. She’d delegated 3PO to keep her updated on his condition, and apparently he was finally awake after a day in the bacta tank. When she arrived at the medbay, he was awake and staring at the ceiling.

“Hi,” she said.

He smiled, a little distant. “Hi, Leia.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Still alive. Everything still kind of hurts, and _ this _ is taking some getting used to.” He lifted the arm with no hand attached.

“They said they were going to replace it for you,” she said. “As soon as you’re strong enough for the surgery.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But it’s still weird. How are _ you_?”

She shrugged. “Still alive.” She sat down at the foot of his bunk. “Where have you been all this time, Luke? The general said we were all down as missing in action.”

Luke hesitated. “I had something I had to do.” She gave him a look, and he sighed. “I’ll tell _ you_, Leia, because I trust you, but I don’t want it to be common knowledge. When we were on Hoth I had this vision.”

“You had a _ vision_?” she repeated.

“Yeah. It was old Ben. Obi-Wan I mean. Ben Kenobi. He told me I had to go to this particular system, and no, I won’t tell you where it was, so don’t bother asking. And that there was an old Jedi Master there who would train me to become a Jedi.”

Leia looked at him, dumbfounded. “And so you went?”

“Yeah. And that’s where I’ve been. Training.”

“So there really was an old Jedi Master there?” she could hardly believe it. All the Jedi were supposed to have been wiped out when the Emperor took power.

He smiled, oddly. “He wasn’t what I expected.”

She wondered if Luke’s Jedi Master would be able to explain to her what Vader had been doing to her, and what he meant when he said she had “a rare talent.” But she didn’t want to dwell on that right now. Maybe she’d ask Luke about it later, when he was feeling stronger. When he didn’t look so flat and hollowed out. She put her hand over his. “What else is bothering you?” she asked. “Something happened, I can tell.”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “Maybe I’ll tell you someday, Leia. Not today. Today, why don’t you tell me about your plan to rescue Han? I know you’re working on one.”

“It’s a little too early to call it a plan,” she said. “Chewie figures the bounty hunter is taking him to Tatooine, and he says Jabba the Hutt probably won’t kill him right away, so…” 

“So we’re going to Tatooine,” said Luke.

She smiled at him. “Lucky you.”

“I can’t wait to show you absolutely nothing, which is all there is on Tatooine.”

She laughed. “It can’t be that bad,” she said, leaning over to give him a little kiss on the forehead. “One of my best friends grew up there."


	23. Leia, Alone

A few days later, Luke told her he was leaving. It was the same day that Chewie and Lando were due to go, and she was sitting with him while he had his new hand fitted. “Not for a week or so,” he said. “Not until I’m all healed up. But I have unfinished business I have to take care of.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “The Jedi Master you were talking about?”

“No,” he said. “I’m going home, to Tatooine. I’m going to go through Ben Kenobi’s stuff, if there’s anything left. I’m hoping there’s answers for me there.”

“Answers to _ what_?” She wanted to cry. “We’re going there together, remember? Can’t you wait until then?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Leia. I can’t. But it won’t be long. As soon as we know Han’s there, Chewie will come get you and then I’ll see you soon, right?”

She looked down and nodded.

Luke left, as promised, about a week after the Falcon departed with Chewie and Lando on it. Leia had thought she was lonely at Echo Base, but now she looked back at it as a happy time. Here, she was respected; when she issued orders, they were followed. People looked at her with awe, because she had survived Darth Vader _ twice_, which no one had ever done before. She was a leader, she was the princess, and she was a symbol of hope, but she was no one’s friend. No one laughed at her, or joked with her. She didn’t feel like a real person.

The fleet had broken up into even smaller pieces, and they were on the run. The Empire was hunting them, even more aggressively than they had after the destruction of the Death Star. She had limited contact with anyone in High Command. Many of them were gathered together at a location that Leia had not been given. Mon Mothma wanted Leia elsewhere; not because she had a particular mission in mind for her, but because it was too dangerous to have the whole council gathered in one place, and Leia was a high priority target for the Empire. She’d slipped out of their grasp twice, and they wanted her back, badly.

Most nights she still dreamed of Alderaan, but sometimes instead she dreamed about Vader, asking her strange questions while he prodded at her mind.

On the worst nights, she dreamed about Han. About what Vader had done to him. About how he had looked at her as he descended through the steam into the freezing chamber. About how he had told Chewie to take care of her; that his greatest care in what might have been the last minutes of his life had been for her.

And when she woke up, she would hear Han’s voice. _If you’re going to dream about me, Princess, I’d prefer it wasn’t a nightmare._

At length, she was summoned to join the rest of the council, and learned the horrifying fact that the Empire was constructing another Death Star. This, at least, gave her something to do. It took a bit of convincing, but she was dispatched on a mission intended to distract the Empire while the fleet gathered in preparation for the attack they would have to make. 

It didn’t go well. Two members of her team died, and somehow the Empire must have been tracking her ship, because no matter which planet she went to, they always showed up right behind her. Those planets suffered, and they suffered because she had been there. The Empire wanted her back; because as long as she was free, she was proof that they were not invincible. No one escaped the Empire; certainly no one escaped Darth Vader. But _ she _ had, and then she’d done it again. I’ll do it a third time if I have to, she thought grimly. Despite all this, the mission was successful; the fleet continued to gather, apparently without being noticed.

Then she got word that Han was on Tatooine, and that he was still frozen. Which meant he was still alive. For how long, she wondered. She needed to get there as soon as possible.

But she refused to take any resources away from the Alliance, other than herself. She wasn’t going to take a ship; Chewie and Lando were coming for her in the Falcon. If it’s safe, she thought. What if the Empire follows you again?

She was being kept away from the flagship, where most of High Command were, as a precaution. Which is why she was surprised when Mon Mothma came to her door.

“Chancellor,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you—”

“No need to make a fuss, Leia. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Is something wrong?”

“This isn’t Alliance business,” said Mon Mothma. “It’s personal. May I sit down?”

Leia nodded, puzzled.

“Your ship should be here soon, shouldn’t it?”

“Yes ma’am, sometime today, if all goes well.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in trying to talk you out of this?” Mon Mothma asked.

“No, ma’am. I have to do this.”

Mon Mothma sighed. “I wish I could send some troops with you, or something, but—”

“No,” said Leia. “I wouldn’t let you. You can’t risk troops on this.” She hesitated a moment. “This mission isn’t Alliance business. It’s personal.”

Mon Mothma looked at her sadly. “I know it is, Leia. I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t have some… concerns, about your relationship with Captain Solo.” Leia looked down, feeling her cheeks get warm. “But I know you’ve made up your mind.”

Leia didn’t say anything, and Mon Mothma went on. “It’s always difficult for me, you know. I’ve lost so many of the people I cared about. Every time you leave, I think, that’s Bail’s daughter. That’s Breha’s daughter. I remember that serious little girl I met twenty years ago, with her big dark eyes. Your father was so happy. And your mother…” She trailed off, lost in memory, and then shook herself a little and met Leia’s eyes. “Before you go, I wanted you to know how very proud I am of you. I wish your parents could see what a strong and brave woman you’ve grown up to be. A leader. I know they would be as proud of you as I am.”

Leia felt tears stinging her eyes. “Thank you.”

“I hope you live long enough to know what a joy it is to see a child you love grow up,” Mon Mothma went on. “I just wish you hadn’t had to grow up quite so fast. This war has taken a lot from all of us. You're as close as I have to anything like family, now. Come back safely, Leia.” She rose to her feet and embraced Leia.

“I’ll try,” said Leia. “We’ll be back in time for— for the mission.” The mission that was so classified they couldn’t talk about it even here. The mission to destroy the second Death Star.

It seemed like there was something else that Mon Mothma wanted to say, but she turned to leave, giving Leia’s hand one quick squeeze before she did.


	24. Jabba's Palace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up, this is the section (this chapter and the next) with some icky stuff with the slave costume and its implications; however nothing happens besides things you see in the film itself and one dude says some gross stuff

Jabba the Hutt was deeply unpleasant. She entered his palace in disguise as a bounty hunter bringing him Chewbacca. She had thought this seemed like an unnecessary risk, but Luke insisted that it was part of the plan. Lando was there already, and he had sent the droids in ahead of her as well.

“You’ll unfreeze Han,” he’d said. “You’ll get caught, but that’s okay. I’ll be there the next day.”

“He’ll kill us,” she’d told him.

“Not before I get there.” He’d smiled at her, but seemed far away. “Trust me. I’ve seen it.”

Luke was strange, now. Distant. Something had changed in him, something she couldn’t explain. Had he found the answers he’d been looking for in the old structure where they’d sat and discussed his complicated plan? It was possible. There were old books scattered throughout the little house. Leia didn’t think she’d seen a real book since the last time she’d been in the ancient royal library on Alderaan. All those books were gone now.

The desert had preserved the books well, and she had gently turned the pages in one. It was written in a language she had never seen before. The only word she recognized was “Jedi.” How old _ was _ this book? 

“You’re really sure about this, Luke? It seems a little complicated. Can’t we just grab him and unfreeze him on the ship?”

Luke had shaken his head, frowning. “No. No, it has to be this way, or else Jabba will just send more bounty hunters after us. We have to break his grip.”

“Break his grip?”

“We have to kill him,” said Luke. “And to kill him, we have to make him think he’s won. You think no one’s tried to take him out before? He’s had control of this whole sector for _ centuries_. I’ve thought a lot about this, Leia. I’ve meditated on it. This will work. Trust me.”

And she did trust him, so she did as he said and went to Jabba’s palace to turn over her friend.

She had never actually met a Hutt before; the Imperial government had no reservations about using the Hutt Clan crime syndicate’s resources if it benefited them, but they weren’t exactly the kind of people who showed up at Senate hearings. Like everyone, they technically fell under the Empire’s jurisdiction, but they were useful for subduing the Outer Rim territories without the need to station Imperial troops out here, so the Empire mostly left them alone, and the Hutts were usually happy enough to grant the occasional favor in return.

Vader had done Jabba a big favor by giving him Han, and Leia felt a tiny curl of worry that if Jabba found out who she really was, he might decide to return the favor. His palace was full of bounty hunters. Someone out here was bound to know that the Empire wanted Leia Organa.

But there was no point in worrying about that now.

C3PO was there, acting as Jabba’s interpreter. He won’t last long doing that, thought Leia, as she haggled over the reward for Chewie. Luke better show up fast if he wants his droid back. She got thirty-five thousand for Chewie, which would be helpful if and when she got it back to the Alliance. Worth Chewie’s life? But Luke had said none of them were getting killed.

She felt the bounty hunter who had gotten them on Bespin glaring at her. He was thinking that he could have gotten that reward, she thought. But Vader didn’t let him have Chewie, for some reason of his own.

Jabba styled this place a “palace,” but it was a far cry from what that word conjured up for Leia. It was hot, crowded, and loud, and the air was dank with moisture and the foul smell of the Hutt who presided over everything, that she could smell even through the ventilation mask of her Ubese disguise. It must be more humid in here than the whole rest of the planet combined, she thought. She remembered Han’s description of Tatooine: “It’s a hellhole. Hot, dry, dirty, and full of the scummiest people you’ve ever seen.” And then: “I’m one of the nice ones.”

She could see him, or the slab of carbonite that contained him, mounted on the wall of the great chamber. Luke had warned her about it. Jabba thought it was funny. Instead of killing Han, he’d simply hung him up on the wall. He liked to prod the bounty hunter, whose name was Boba Fett, to tell the story of how he’d tracked down the elusive smuggler. Lando had said that Jabba was particularly impressed by how Fett had gotten paid twice for catching the same man.

For now she waited. Jabba had some women in chains and very little else, and when he had completed his negotiations with Leia, he ordered the band to play, and the women were made to dance. The crowd hooted and hollered, and Jabba rattled the chains on the girls. She would have liked to shove her thermal detonator right down Jabba’s disgusting throat and set it off. When we kill him, she thought, I’ll get those girls free.

In the middle of the night, she crept through the dark palace, as Luke had said to do. Everything was quiet and still, but she could feel the prickle of danger along her skin. Jabba was here, and he knew she was here. _You’ll get caught,_ said Luke. _But that’s okay._

Getting caught was the plan, and everything went according to plan.

It wasn’t all bad. Han was awake now. He was weak and sick and couldn’t see, but he was awake. He made a surprisingly quick recovery when it came to one of his primary skills: trying to talk his way out of trouble. “Jabba, I was just on my way to pay you back, but I got a little sidetracked.” True, sort of, thought Leia. He had continually insisted that he was about to leave to go pay off his debt, and he _ did _ keep getting sidetracked. By me, she thought, which was a stupid thought and not even really true.

Han kept talking even as they were dragging him away. Stupid man, she thought. He never did know when to shut up. Lando was at her side, and trying to subtly move her out of the chamber, when Jabba noticed them. _ You’ll get caught, but that’s okay. _ She attempted to threaten Jabba with her “powerful friends,” but of course he knew it was a bluff.

The smell was much worse with her mask off, and she was right up next to him. He was disgusting. Everything about this was disgusting. _ You’ll get caught, but that’s okay. I’ll be there the next day_. Hurry, she thought.

They dragged her off, and Lando met her eyes apologetically. She would have liked to have blamed him, but it wasn’t his fault. What happens now? she asked herself. Her concern that Fett, or someone else, would tell Jabba about the reward for her capture and she’d be shipped right back off to Vader was being supplanted by another worry, now that she’d seen Jabba’s slave women. She was starting to wish she’d asked Luke just a few more questions about what he’d “seen.”

They took her clothes, and gave her a bath, and stuck her in a humiliating costume that barely covered anything, and she was not going to panic about any of this. Luke was on his way. _ You’ll get caught, but that’s okay_. She said it to herself over and over, like a mantra. They didn’t know who she was. Fett would tell them, but right now, they didn’t know. The attendants who had bathed and “dressed” her were arguing about what they should do with her hair. In a blow to her pride, they ended up giving her a braided style that was similar to what, on Alderaan, was worn for celebrations. She had worn it like that when she gave Luke and Han their medals, and at her formal investiture as the heir to the throne.

Maybe they _ did _ know who she was.

She didn’t bother thinking about the kinds of things that happened to girls like her in places like this. The kinds of things they were dressing her up for. There was no point in worrying about things that hadn’t happened yet. She’d been through worse. Probably.

But Han was alive, and Luke was on his way, and he had seemed so confident. _This will work. Trust me._


	25. The Sand Barge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up, this is the section with some icky stuff with the slave costume and its implications, nothing happens that you don't see on screen in the film and a few gross comments

Luke did arrive, early the next day. Leia was enduring the worst humiliation of her life, with a chain around her throat which the Hutt would rattle when he wanted her attention, which was often. No one had actually touched her yet, which was a small mercy, but she knew it couldn’t last long. _ You’ll get caught, but that’s okay. _ She looked at Luke, who was wrapped in a dark robe, but he didn’t look at her. He looked only at Jabba. He spoke in a perfectly calm voice, promising the Hutt that if he didn’t give him Han and Chewie, he would be destroyed. “I warn you not to underestimate my powers,” he added. 

Jabba was not impressed. Luke is going to die, thought Leia. Han is going to die and Chewie is going to die and I’m going to be trapped here until Jabba and his goons get sick of looking at me and whatever else they plan to do to me.

No. This wasn’t going to help anything. And Luke seemed unconcerned about the fact that Jabba had just dumped him, unarmed, in a pit with a Rancor.

He killed it. Somehow. The Hutt yanked so hard on her chain when he saw that she was happy about it that she almost choked. We’re going to kill him, she reminded herself. He’ll be dead by the end of the day. Luke had said so, and she trusted Luke.

A few minutes later, the guards dragged Han and Chewie into the room. Han looked better, she thought. Stronger. She felt better just for seeing him, even though the situation still seemed hopeless. But Han and Luke were joking with each other:

“How we doing?”

“Same as always.”

“That bad, huh?”

Luke still didn’t seem worried. Han asked about Leia, and some wild stir of hope rose up in her. This whole plan was lunacy, but it _ was _ going to work. She could feel it now. They were all together now, the four of them. They had escaped the Death Star together. Who was Jabba the Hutt, compared to that?

He was the disgusting creature who was currently stroking her body like she was his pet. Her skin crawled and her stomach turned. But he was going to be dead soon, and with any luck, she would be the one to kill him. 

Jabba, through 3PO, announced that the three of them were to be executed immediately. “Good,” said Han. “I hate long waits.” Was he ever going to learn to shut up? Leia wondered. She loved him so much, the impossible man.

Luke, still eerily calm, told Jabba that he should have bargained. “That’s the last mistake you’ll ever make.” Jabba laughed, and rattled Leia’s chain. I’m going to kill you, she thought. I’m going to strangle you with this chain and I’m going to watch you die. There was a sense of inevitability about everything. Maybe it was just Luke’s serene confidence. It was catching.

The court decamped from the palace to an enormous barge, so they could go to watch the execution at the Sarlaac pit. There was a festive atmosphere on the barge. Everyone was excited to witness the death of the overconfident young man who claimed, absurdly, to be a Jedi. Leia stood by one of the windows, watching the skiff containing all her friends as they moved toward the execution site.

“How do you know them?” a grimy human male asked her. “Were you fucking them? Don’t worry, pretty girl. When Jabba gets sick of you maybe he’ll give you to me, huh? Make you forget all about them—” She punched him in the abdomen and he bent over double, wheezing.

Jabba pulled hard on the chain and started yelling at the man. 3PO translated. “His Excellency demands to know why you have dared to speak to— oh I really can’t say—” Jabba struck him, as he had done several times in the day since Leia had first gotten here. 3PO continued, “to speak to his new— his new toy — without permission. He says there is plenty of time for you to join the prisoners in the pit of Carkoon.”

The man grovelled. “I’m sorry, Jabba, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Jabba dragged Leia back next to him. The smell was absolutely overpowering. He said something to her and laughed, and then spoke sharply to the droid, who hesitated a moment, making a terrified sound. “3PO, just say what he tells you to say,” Leia snapped. He was going to get _ himself _ thrown into the pit at this rate.

“Ah. Ah. Well. He says that he enjoys your— your spirit.” Jabba said something else, leering. “And— and that he looks forward to— to breaking it.”

She looked at her captor. “You can try,” she told him, cool. He laughed, and licked her face with his enormous tongue. I’m going to kill you, she thought again.

Most of the party, Jabba included, were drunk by the time they arrived at the pit. The music stopped and everyone fell silent while Jabba made his final pronouncement. “His Excellency hopes that you will die honorably,” translated 3PO. “But should any of you wish to beg for mercy, the great Jabba will now listen to your pleas.”

That was never going to happen, thought Leia. Han, down on the skiff, shouted back, “3PO, you tell that slimy piece of worm ridden filth he’ll get no such pleasure from us.” 

Impossible man.

Then Luke spoke. “This is your last chance,” he said. “Free us, or die.”

The party on the barge really enjoyed that, howling with laughter and cheers. Some people were throwing things out the windows, trying to hit one of the prisoners. Leia watched silently. I hope Luke knows what he’s doing, she thought. He glanced up toward the barge and she saw his eyes. He wasn’t worried. This was all going according to plan.

They pushed him off the plank into the pit, and a bloodthirsty cheer went up from the barge. But then, somehow, he was back on the skiff, and he had a lightsaber in his hand, and two guards had already been knocked into the mouth of the sarlaac.

The barge erupted into chaos as Jabba started screaming at everyone. A large gun on the top of the barge started firing down toward the skiff with her friends on it. He was too distracted to pay any attention to his “new toy,” so Leia took her opportunity, wrapping the chain around his throat and pulling it tight. See how _ you _ like it, she thought, grim.

Jabba was choking; his eyes were bulging and his tongue was protruding as he gasped for air that he couldn’t get. It only took a moment or two, and he was dead. If anyone noticed what was happening, no one came to his aid. Jabba didn’t have any friends. These people were loyal to him only to the extent that he held power over them. They would be just as happy with him dead as alive.

Now her next task was to figure out how to get out of these chains so she could escape. R2D2 came trundling along up to her, beeping and whirring, and produced a little torch. She grinned. Perfect. Chains broken, she and the little droid ran for it.

She was still mostly naked, and she was still surrounded by thieves and murderers who, just moments before, had been cheering for the deaths of her dearly loved friends, but she was feeling pretty great. Everything had gone sharp and clear. Everyone was too busy to pay much attention to her, which they were going to regret. _ People will underestimate you, and being underestimated can be very useful_. Her father’s words, so long ago. Followed by the droids, she burst out onto the deck and took stock.

She could hear Luke yelling to her. “Get the gun! Point it at the deck!” How could she hear him through all the noise? Chalk it up to the Force, she thought. It was a good idea. The huge deck gun was not being used; Luke had effectively distracted the guards who should have been manning it. She climbed up onto the platform and swiveled the cannon around so it was pointing at the barge itself. So long, assholes, she thought cheerfully. Luke climbed up next to her. “Come on!” he shouted. He had a rope in his hand. Oh come on, she thought. Not this swinging business again. He grabbed her, kicked the trigger of the gun, and they swung out over the desert sands and landed on the skiff where the others were. The barge went up in flames.


	26. On Tatooine

They zoomed along over the sand, watching the barge collapse behind them. Shoddy construction, Leia thought. It was just one cannon blast. No one said anything for a while, and then Leia broke the silence. “Hey, do you think you could get me something to _ wear_?” 

“I’m sorry,” said Luke. “I wasn’t thinking. You look so nice!” She aimed a kick at him and he handed her his robe. Wrapping herself in it, she went to sit beside Han.

“Come clean, Luke,” she said. “When you said you saw all of this, was this little _ outfit _ part of it?”

“Well… not exactly,” he said, hedging.

“Unbelievable,” she said. “Thanks for the warning.”

“Is anyone going to tell me what you’re talking about? What outfit?” said Han. “I can still barely see.”

“It’s nothing,” said Leia.

“_Almost _ nothing,” said Lando, helpfully. 

She might have slapped him, if he were closer, but she settled for a glare and a “shut up, _ Lando_. You’re still on pretty thin ice.”

But she was too happy to stay angry. Han was back. They had pulled it off. She was sitting next to Han, and he was alive, and she loved him, and he was _ here_.

“R2, do you think you can help me with _ this_?” she asked, indicating the remaining chain. R2 beeped confidently and trundled over to her. Being careful not to burn her, he sliced the collar off of her, and she tossed it over the edge of the skiff. That was the end of _ that_, she thought, satisfied. She did feel a pang, thinking of Jabba’s other girls. What would happen to them now, she wondered. Sold off to other scuzzy people for who knows what? Could she go back and rescue them, somehow? She rolled the idea over in her mind. Jabba was dead. Luke could probably use his skills to get whoever was back at the palace to let the girls go.

And then what? Did they have homes to go back to? Families?

“Luke,” she said. “We have to go back.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” said Lando. “Why would you want to go back there?”

“The girls,” she said. “The slaves. We can get them out of there. Jabba’s dead, it’s the perfect opportunity. You can just tell them to let them go, and they will, right? That’s how you got in.”

Luke paused. “I could probably do that. But aren’t we in a hurry to get back to the fleet?”

“It won’t take long,” she said. “I can’t leave those girls there. You know what’s going to happen to them if we don’t get them out.”

“_She’s right_,” said Chewie. “_If we can free slaves, we must free slaves_.” Chewie had been a slave once, too, Leia remembered. She shot him a grateful glance. 

“Let’s get Han back to the ship,” said Leia. “And then we’ll go and get the girls. You don’t have to come, Lando, if you don’t care.”

“How come I don’t get to come?” said Han.

“How’s your eyesight?” she asked.

“Bad,” he admitted. “Okay, I get it. I’ll wait on the ship. When you say ‘the ship,’” he added hopefully, “do you mean _ my _ ship?”

“Yes sweetheart, it’s your ship,” she said, rolling her eyes a little. A little twitch of a smile appeared on Han’s face when she called him “sweetheart,” in just the tone he used to say it to her when he was annoyed with her.

Back at the ship, Leia immediately ran to the captain’s quarters to get dressed. She left the disgusting costume on the floor. I’ll incinerate it later, she thought. She never wanted to see or think about it again. She wanted to fix her hair, too, but there wasn’t time. She could do it when she got back from freeing the girls. Anyway, she _ did _ feel like celebrating.

Han intercepted her on her way back to talk to the others. “Leia?” he said. “That’s you, right?”

She laughed. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“You almost have a face,” he said, reaching for it. His fingers very gently ran over her cheeks, her forehead, her nose. She felt a little shiver run through her. Now, she thought. Now you can tell me what you were going to tell me before. When his fingers touched her lips, she kissed them, and she lifted her own hand to hold his there. 

“All right, lovebirds,” Lando called. “I’d like to get out of here as soon as possible, so let’s save this for after the big rescue.”

They decided that she and Luke should go, and Lando and Chewie should stay behind in case someone had followed them and they needed to defend the ship and Han.

“We better bring 3PO along, too,” Leia said, a little reluctantly. “I don’t think all the girls speak Basic so we might need a translator.”

3PO immediately started objecting to the idea of “ever going back to that awful, awful place.”

“This is not a debate,” said Leia. “We need a translator, and that is your job, is it not?” R2D2 chimed in with what sounded very much like a scolding, and 3PO reluctantly agreed. 

“Lando,” she added. “Give me those credit chips I got from Jabba.” She’d made sure to give them to Lando before she got caught.

“You’re not going to—”

“_Lando_. What did I just say?”

He handed them over.

“What the hell is Lando even doing here, anyway?” asked Han.

“Rescuing you,” said Leia. “I guess he has a conscience after all.”

She, Luke, and 3PO walked into Jabba’s palace, met by the same Twi’lek who had greeted Leia when she first arrived in disguise. It was easy enough. “Your master is dead,” said Luke, in his calm voice. “You will take us to where the slaves are held.”

The Twi’lek did as Luke told him, and then Luke told the same thing to the attendants who had bathed Leia and argued about her hair. “Your master is dead, and all these slaves are free,” he told them. “Undo their chains.” They did.

The slave girls looked around at each other, confused. They recognized Leia, who had taken Jabba’s attention off of them for a day, and clustered around to ask her what was happening.

“Jabba’s dead,” she told them. There were whispers and gasps of shock. “I came back to get you all to safety.”

“There’s no safety for girls on Tatooine,” said one of them. “Where are we supposed to go? We have no money.”

“That’s easy enough,” said Luke. “How much do you think you need? Fifty thousand apiece should set you up pretty well, right?” He turned to the Twi’lek. “You will pay each of these women fifty thousand credits.”

The Twi’lek said, “what?”

Luke repeated himself and the Twi’lek nodded and left. When he came back, he had bags full of credit chips which he distributed to each of the women.

A girl, so young it was devastating to even look at her, asked a question in a language Leia didn’t know, and 3PO translated, “she wants to know how you did that.”

Luke smiled, mysteriously. “I’m a Jedi.”

“All the Jedi are dead,” said the one who had been acting as spokeswoman. “If they ever even existed.”

“You say that even though I am standing before you and you have seen my power,” said Luke. “Leia, do we want any more of Jabba’s money before we go?”

“Might as well,” she said, and they took as much as they could carry.

“We’ll drop you off at Mos Espa, if that’s all right,” said Luke, as they all boarded the skiff. “From there you should be able to hire ships home, or whatever else you want to do.”

“You think the Clan will come after us for this?” Leia asked. “For taking the money?”

“No,” said Luke. “I don’t think so.”

She contacted the others back at the Falcon, and told them they were making a detour to drop the girls off and would be back soon, and Luke drove them to Mos Espa while Leia gazed out over the desert and wondered what it was like to grow up in this desolate place.


	27. On Tatooine

The city was larger than she expected, and busier. “Have you been here before?” she asked Luke, and he shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I lived in the other direction. Closest town to us was Anchorhead, which was barely a town at all. I never set foot in a real city until we went to Mos Eisley to get offplanet and go find you. This place seems nicer than Mos Eisley,” he added. “Not much nicer, but nicer.”

“You’re from Tatooine?” asked the woman who had spoken for the group, whose name was Janna.

“Yeah,” he said. “Moisture farm, down on the salt flats.”

“Hard living down there,” said Janna.

“Hard living everywhere,” Luke said.

“I grew up in Mos Eisley,” said Janna. “I’ve always been a slave. What about you?” she asked Leia. “You’re not from Tatooine.”

“No,” said Leia. “I’m from Alderaan.”

Janna raised her eyebrows. “Ah,” she said. “So you’re _ that _ Leia.”

Even out here, she thought. Everyone knows.

“So you’re rebels, then,” said Janna. “That’s interesting. Oh don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to turn you in or anything. If you’re ever back on this shithole planet and you need a favor, you look me up.”

“You’re going to stay here?” said Leia.

Janna shrugged. “This is home. Where else am I going to go?”

Luke seemed a little reluctant to leave Mos Espa. “What’s going on?” she asked him. 

He paused a minute, and then said, “I was reading Ben’s journals. This is where my father lived as a child. Ben met him here. He and my grandmother— they were slaves here. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know he was a slave. My uncle never mentioned it.”

She took his hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry, Luke.”

“Anyway, I’m glad I got to see it,” he said. “But we have to get back now.”

When they got back to the Falcon, Luke turned to her and said, “I have to tell you something else. I’m not coming with you to the fleet. I have something I need to do first.”

“What?” she said. “Luke, when are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

His face was thoughtful, but still distant. “I don’t know. Someday, maybe.”

“Luke, let me help you.”

He smiled that distant smile. “I wish you could, but you can’t help me with this.”

She sighed. Luke was so far away, and he seemed so broken. “I thought— I thought we would all be together again. Like the old days.” She smiled a sad smile. “I guess it won’t ever be like that again, will it?”

“Probably not,” he said.

“We were just kids then, weren’t we? Back at the Death Star?”

“_I _ was a kid,” he said. “You— you were amazing. You’ve always been amazing. I’d never seen anyone like you in my entire life. I still haven’t.”

She laughed. “I’m not that special.”

“Yes you are,” he said, giving her that faraway look again.

“Are you coming back?” she asked. “The fleet is almost assembled, and this mission… we’re going to need you, Luke. I can’t tell you what’s happening, but we need you.”

“Then I’ll be there,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. She wrapped her arms around him and they held each other for a moment.

“Hey Leia, what’s the holdup?” Han said, coming back down the ramp of the ship. “Oh, uh. Sorry. Sorry.” He turned around and went back into the ship.

It was an odd thing for him to do, and she watched him retreat, calling out “Han!”

Luke gave her another quick kiss on the forehead. “I’ll see you soon, okay? When he gets his vision back you should put that outfit back on.”

She smacked him. But at least he had made her laugh, so she didn’t feel so sad.


	28. The Millennium Falcon

“Han, you’re just going to make it worse if you strain your eyes like that,” she told him, for the third time. He was concentrating on his own hand, trying to force the image to resolve into the proper shape.

“I’ve almost got it,” he said. “It’s really close. It just looks like I have a lot more fingers than I should.”

They were on their way back. The fleet was clustered at the opposite end of the galaxy, and they wanted to avoid flying through the core, so they were taking a long route along the boundaries of the Inner and Outer Rims. Even at lightspeed, it would take a couple of days, but that wasn’t so bad, Leia had thought. It meant time with Han.

But Han was acting peculiar. Firstly, he was cranky about his eyesight. He wanted to see the Falcon, he said, and make sure that Lando hadn’t damaged her while he was gone. He didn’t say it, but she had the sense he was afraid that he might not fully recover his vision, and that would mean an end to flying, which is what he was best at and loved the most.

And although he had resumed his swaggering good humor almost as soon as he could stand upright again; had even cracked jokes at what was supposed to be his execution, she knew he was deeply shaken by what had happened. Han had spent his whole life talking his way out of trouble, and when talking didn’t work, shooting usually did. Until Bespin. 

But none of that explained why he seemed to be avoiding _ her_. There had been that moment, when he touched her face, that it had seemed like they were going to pick up right where they’d left off, but then something changed. He hadn’t said anything to her except to ask where Luke was. When she told him he wasn’t coming with them, her voice had broken a little, and after that he hadn’t said anything else to her.

“Leia’s right,” said Lando. She shot him a look. She hadn’t given him permission to start using her name again. “You’re going to strain your eyes. Why don’t you go get some rest? You’ll probably see fine if you sleep a while.” 

Han grumbled a little but admitted there was some merit to the idea, and, scowling, attempted to make his way out of the cabin. “Han,” said Lando. “Where are you going? Captain’s quarters are that way.”

Han paused a moment. “I thought the princess was still using them.”

A long, awkward pause settled over the cabin. Leia sat still and looked at her hands. What was she supposed to say? That she thought they’d be sharing them now? That _ everyone _ thought they’d be sharing them now? Lando glanced at her and she swallowed hard. “They’re your quarters,” she said, not looking up. “It’s your ship. If you want them back…” 

“It’s no problem,” said Han, and, squinting and swearing, started on his way to the crew quarters. “Chewie, give me a hand, will you?” he said. “I can’t see where the hell I’m going.”

When they had exited, Leia wondered how long she could wait before beating a retreat to the privacy of the quarters that were now, apparently, hers. Lando cleared his throat awkwardly. “It’s been a rough day, I’m sure—”

“Do you _ ever _ shut up?” she snapped, getting up and leaving.

In the captain’s quarters, she found herself resenting that doors on starships couldn’t be slammed, because a good slammed door would make her feel a lot better right now. But of course, even if she could slam the door, she wouldn’t have, because slamming a door was something a spoiled child would do.

She sat down on the bed — Han’s bed — and took a long, shaky breath. What did you think? she asked herself. That he was going to tell you he loved you and you were going to fall into each other’s arms and it would be happily ever after like one of those damn holovids?

Yes, she answered herself. Yes, of course that’s what I thought, because I’m a stupid kid and I really thought that a couple of kisses meant that he loved me. She put her hand over her mouth to try to keep herself from sobbing out loud. What was wrong with her? Her gaze fell to the awful costume they’d stuck her in at Jabba’s, which she had left on the floor, and she gave it a vicious kick. _ When he gets his vision back you should put that outfit back on. _ Shut up, she thought. 

Han’s mood did improve after his vision was back to normal, but he was still quieter than usual. And while he wasn’t outright ignoring Leia anymore, he also didn’t tease her or flirt or try to touch her again. She didn’t understand. Did he think she hadn’t meant it, when she told him she loved him? Or did he know she _ did _ mean it, and that scared him away?

If Amilyn were here, she would have told Leia to ask him. But Leia couldn’t bring herself to do that. She was too afraid of what the answer would be. So this is just how it is, now, she thought. This is why I didn’t want to fall for him in the first place. She hated him, a little, for spending three years trying to win her and then dropping her as soon as she told him she loved him. You knew what kind of man he is, Leia, she told herself. You should have known better. You _ did _ know better. Han wasn’t the “bit of a scoundrel” that her mother had advised her to love.

_ Scoundrel? _ she remembered him saying. _ Scoundrel… I like the sound of that. _

She wondered if Amilyn would be at the briefing on Home One. She might be out playing tag with the Imperial fleet, keeping them busy to distract them from the big attack. Amilyn was General Holdo now, and Leia had not actually seen her in at least a year. She missed her friend desperately. Were they even still really friends, now? Could you be friends with someone you never talked to? Back on Coruscant, they used to spend almost every minute of their precious free time together. 

She wondered if she would spend the rest of her life feeling lonely. She didn’t remember the last time she hadn’t.

No. That wasn’t true. It had been on the way to Bespin, when she was falling in love with Han.


	29. Near Sullust

Amilyn _ was _ with the fleet when they got back, although it was only temporary, she said. As Leia had suspected, General Holdo was going to be part of the distraction team, leading the Imperial fleet on a wild goose chase so that the main force of the Alliance fleet could attack their target, which was still so highly classified that no one outside of High Command and the spies who had first brought them the intel knew.

“Why don’t you come with me?” Amilyn suggested. “We could really have some fun out there.”

“Not sure ‘fun’ is the word I would use,” said Leia. She considered Amilyn’s offer, but there wouldn’t really be anything for her to _ do _ on the ship. There might not be anything for her to do here, either, she reminded herself. She wouldn’t be placed in command of a ship; that was outside her skillset. But there was going to be a need for a ground assault team to take care of the energy shield that was protecting the target, and ground assault, she could do. Convincing Mon Mothma to let her go would be the hardest part.

Leia was on Amilyn’s ship because she hadn’t been allowed on the flagship. Han had landed the Falcon on Home One, but they’d been met at the hangar by a young lieutenant who had explained, awkwardly, that Command didn’t want Leia there. “I’m sorry, Princess,” she said. “These orders come straight from the chancellor herself. She says you’re to go to the Revelation and General Holdo will keep you at a safe distance until it’s time.”

A safe distance, thought Leia. As if there was such a thing. She didn’t bother arguing; it was pointless. If Mon Mothma were here herself, she would have stood a chance, but this kid wasn’t going to go against orders that came from the chancellor. “Do you have a shuttle ready for me?” she asked, annoyed.

“I’ll take you,” said Han. “Where are we going?”

The lieutenant hesitated. “High Command wants to talk to you, sir.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I’ve got the princess taken care of,” he said. “Now tell me where I’m taking her.”

The lieutenant gave him the coordinates and the two of them reboarded the Falcon. The Revelation wasn’t part of the main cluster of ships, and it would take them about an hour to get there. An hour alone in the Falcon, with Han. 

“So what’s your plan now?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “I hadn’t really thought any farther ahead than getting you to this ship, and then I guess I’ll go talk to the generals.”

“Well… are you sticking around?” she asked. Her voice shook a little when she asked. Did she still even want him to stick around, if he didn’t love her?

“I don’t know. Should I?” He looked over at her again. “I mean, do you want me to?” 

How could he ask her that? She blinked her eyes, hard, to try to keep back the tears that were threatening to fall. “Of course I do,” she said, trying hard to keep her voice even. “I want—” she cut herself off. I want us to be together. I want you to love me like I love you. I want it to be like it was.

“You want what?” he said. She couldn’t place the emotion in his voice. She didn’t understand what was happening.

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, sure that if she did, she would start weeping. Instead she made herself get angry. “You _ know _ what I want, Han.” I already told you, she thought. I told you that I loved you.

“Well no, actually, Princess, I don’t know. I’m not _ Luke_. I can’t read your mind.”

“That never seemed to stop you before,” she snapped. Why were they fighting? She didn’t want to fight. She wanted to climb back into his lap and finish what they’d started so many months ago. She wanted him to kiss her and tell her that he loved her, and then take her back to the captain’s quarters like she’d imagined so many times. She wanted _ him _. She stared out the window, and the stars were blurry through her tears. “I don’t want to fight, Han,” she said, miserably. “Please let’s not fight.”

What is happening, she thought. What did I do wrong?

General Holdo met them at the hangar bay herself. Her hair was a brilliant blue, the color the oceans of Alderaan had been when you looked at it from space. “Leia,” she said, practically running to fling her arms around her friend. It was not the most dignified move for a general, but it was classic Amilyn. Leia laughed and the tears she’d been holding back for the whole trip from Home One spilled over. “Oh it’s so good to see you,” said Amilyn. “It’s been ages. You look beautiful, but don’t you always.”

Han shifted a little uncomfortably. Amilyn looked at him. “Solo,” she said, offering her hand. “Been a while. Thanks for bringing her to me. Are you staying?”

“Command wants him on Home One,” Leia said.

“That’s interesting,” said Amilyn. “They must have big plans for you. Well, thanks again for your help. Safe trip back.” 

She bent down to whisper in Leia’s ear, “I’ll give you a minute to say goodbye,” gave her a knowing wink, and left the hangar.

A minute to say goodbye. What was she supposed to say? She looked down at her feet, and then up at Han’s face, and then down at her feet again. “I guess I’ll see you soon,” she said, but it came out like a question.

“Yeah,” said Han. “I guess so.”

She looked up at him again, pleading. “Han, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, but he sounded sad. “Everything’s fine.” He was looking at her with sad eyes, and she didn’t understand.

“Then why do you look like that?” she asked. “Why haven’t you— why…” she couldn’t finish. Why don’t you like me anymore? Why don’t you want me anymore?

He bent down and gently kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, and he turned and walked away, back to his ship.


	30. Aboard the Revelation

“So what’s going on there?” Amilyn asked.

“Do you ever think about anything but sex?” asked Leia.

“Tons of stuff,” said Amilyn, cheerfully. “I think about war a lot, of course, and tactics. And death, but sex and death are kind of the same thing, you know? Or two sides of the same thing, and you know how important balance is to me. I think about tea a lot more than you might expect. I haven’t had a cup of real Gatalentan tea in I don’t even know how long. When the war is over that’s the first thing I’m going to do, go home to Gatalenta and drink all the tea I can hold.”

Leia laughed.

“Anyway,” said Amilyn. “I didn’t say anything about sex. I asked what was going on with Solo, and _ you _ brought up sex. So I guess that’s my answer.”

“We’re not,” said Leia. “We haven’t. I thought we would, but… I don’t really want to think about it right now, Amilyn. Can’t we talk about something else?”

“War it is, then,” said Amilyn. “Welcome to my ship. Do you want a tour, or shall I just show you to the guest quarters?”

A tour of the ship sounded like a welcome distraction from thinking about Han. It was a smaller ship, highly maneuverable, which had been retrofitted to hold a squadron of X-wings. Amilyn’s unorthodox approach to combat had produced a crew that was deeply devoted to her, which pleased Leia. Amilyn was still a strange person, but everyone knew that when you needed a ship to do the impossible, you sent General Holdo and the Revelation.

“We’ll only be here a few more days,” said Amilyn, when they’d retired to the captain’s quarters after the tour. “Just doing some maintenance. We’ve got our own mission. Orders are to send you back to the flagship before we go. Unless you want to come with us,” she added.

“Why’d they bother sending me here if it’s only for a few days?” said Leia.

“All I know is Chancellor Mothma called me up to see if I wanted to host you for a few days, and I said yes. Maybe she just thought we’d want to see each other. I miss you, you know?”

“I miss you, too,” said Leia. “I’m always thinking, ‘I wish Amilyn were here. Amilyn would know what to do.’”

“Oh, you haven’t done too bad for yourself,” said Amilyn. “And Solo’s a hell of a pilot. Flying through an asteroid field! You guys are legends.”

Leia laughed. “Well. We’ve pulled off a few things.” But thinking of Han made her heart ache. “Anyway, I wasn’t really talking about that. I meant… something else.”

“Ah yes,” said Amilyn. “So now we’re circling back. Go on. You want some tea? It’s not the real thing, not Gatalentan, but it’s better than nothing, and I really think you should always have tea when you’re talking about heartbreak.”

“I didn’t say—”

“Your face did. What’s going on?” Amilyn had a little water heater in her quarters which she flipped on, and started prepping the tea.

“Nothing. I’m just an idiot,” said Leia. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters,” said Amilyn. “My friend is sad. That matters a lot. Here, don’t drink it yet, it’s too hot.” She placed a cup of steaming tea in front of Leia.

“I fell in love with him,” Leia finally admitted. “I tried not to, but we were trapped on that ship for weeks, and… It just sort of happened. I thought he felt the same way, but I guess… I don’t know. Since Tatooine, things are just different. He used to be… well you saw us together. He was always flirting, no matter how much I told him to stop, and now…”

“That’s rough,” said Amilyn. “Men are weird. Did you tell him that you loved him or are you doing what you always do?”

“Yes, I told him! I didn’t want to regret not saying it if he died, so I told him.”

“That’s the most intense possible way to tell someone you love them,” said Amilyn. “Have you said it since then?”

“Once,” said Leia, hedging. “At Jabba’s palace.”

“So still in mortal danger, then?”

Leia nodded. Amilyn shook her head. “Why don’t you try talking about it when you’re _ not _ about to die?”

“But we’re _ always _ about to die.”

“Well, sometimes we’re closer than others,” said Amilyn. “Anyway, there’s no way to know what’s going on unless you talk to him.”

“I tried,” she said. “Just now, I asked him what was wrong.”

“Just now, like when he was about to leave and there was no time for a real conversation? Leia.”

“Okay, I get it, Amilyn, I’m terrible at this! I wish I could just do my job and not worry about this stuff. I never asked for any of it. I feel like an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot. You’re a person, and I’ve told you before, falling in love is a good thing! You don’t need to fight it so hard.”

“Have _ you _ been in love?” Leia looked at her friend.

“Once,” said Amilyn. “She was a mechanic. Met her on Jakku; ever been there?” Leia shook her head. “Real unpleasant place. Sand in your hair, you know? We were there for a couple of months, and she helped fix up some of our fighters. I almost asked her to come with us when we left, but…”

“What happened to her?” asked Leia.

“The Empire,” said Amilyn, with a shrug. “Same thing that happens to most of us.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Things happen. That’s why you have to get whatever happiness you can while you still can. Like you said, we’re always about to die. Anyway, we should enjoy ourselves while you’re here. This is as close to shore leave as I ever get.”


	31. Aboard the Revelation

They did enjoy themselves over the next two days. Nothing much was happening aboard the Revelation besides the routine maintenance, so the atmosphere was relaxed and vacation-like. “We never get a break,” said Amilyn. “I’m glad these guys are getting one now. Get sharp for combat.”

“You don’t have stuff to do, to prepare?” asked Leia.

Amilyn shrugged. “Not really. Orders are, we go out there and cause some trouble. Attract attention.”

“That is something you excel at,” Leia admitted.

“Naturally talented,” Amilyn said modestly.

So they got to spend a lot of time together, which was wonderful. Over a year had passed since they’d said goodbye at Baraan-Fa, and they both had a million stories to tell about what had happened in between. Amilyn didn’t ask Leia about Han again, but he featured in most of her best stories, so it was impossible not to talk about him at all. 

And at the end of two days, the ship was ready to go. “You sure you don’t want to come along?” said Amilyn. “One last chance.”

“I’d just get in your way.”

Amilyn sent a message to the fleet that they were ready to go, and received a response that a ship was being dispatched to pick up the princess.

“I could have flown myself back,” said Leia. “I’m not completely incompetant.”

“You’re extremely competent,” Amilyn said agreeably. “But this way we get a little extra time together, while we wait for your ride. So that’s not so bad, is it?”

Leia smiled. “No, that’s not so bad. I just hate not being useful, you know? They’re finalizing all the plans without me.”

“Rest is important work, too,” said Amilyn. It was the kind of thing Amilyn had told her many times before. “I mean it sounds like you had a hell of a time on Tatooine. Now you’re rested up and you can go into this mission sharp.”

“I guess I can see your point,” said Leia. “But I still hate not knowing anything.”

“You worry too much,” said Amilyn.

“You sound like Han.”

About an hour later, they got word of an approaching ship, which was soon identified as the Millennium Falcon. Leia felt something untwist in her chest. Han had come for her.

“Well, I guess we better get you down to the hangar bay,” said Amilyn. “This has been fun, hasn’t it?”

“It really has,” said Leia.

The Falcon landed, and the airlocks whirred, and then Leia and Amilyn opened the doors to the hangar bay. Han came down the ramp, and he looked like himself again. Swaggering. She was smiling despite herself. _ Falling in love is a good thing, you don’t have to fight it so hard_.

He came to a stop just in front of them. “Princess,” he said.

“Hi,” she said. 

“Hi,” he repeated.

“Bye Leia,” said Amilyn. “It was good to see you. Try not to die before we see each other again.”

Leia laughed as she hugged her friend. “May the Force be with you, too, Amilyn.”

“See you around, Solo. Take care of my friend,” said Amilyn.

“I’ll try,” said Han. “But she takes pretty good care of herself most of the time.”

At the top of the ramp into the ship, Leia turned back to see Amilyn one last time, but the general had already left the hangar bay.

She went to the cockpit and sat down in the copilot’s seat. Han was there a moment later, and started the ship up. For a while Leia just looked at the place where she’d seen her friend last, and then shook herself awake with a sigh.

“You all right?” Han asked.

“Yeah.” She smiled over at him. “I’m all right.”

An hour alone with Han, on the Falcon. _ Why don’t you try talking about it when you’re not about to die_? But she didn’t know how to start. That was the problem, she thought. Han had always taken the lead. She’d never had to initiate anything.

“Hey,” he said. “You wanna take her out?”

“What?”

“The Falcon,” he said. “You want to fly?’

She stared at him, uncomprehending. “Are you _ serious_?”

He didn’t look at her. “You can’t _ land _ her,” he said. “But if you want to take her out.”

“You’re going to let _ me _ fly your precious ship?”

“Well now you’re starting to make me regret it. I mean I thought you said you knew how to fly in a straight line but maybe you were exaggerating.”

She was smiling so hard it almost hurt. He did love her, and this was his way of telling her. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

Han put in a call to the Revelation that they were ready for takeoff, and the airlocks whirred and then the great bay door opened and Leia took the ship up and out. She didn’t dare look at Han while she did, but she could feel his eyes on her and it was making her very nervous. When they were clear of the Revelation, Han entered the course heading and they were on their way.

“Confess,” said Han. She looked at him, puzzled. “Did Chewie let you fly this ship while I was gone?”

“...a couple of times,” she admitted.

“Yeah, I know.” He grinned. “Lando already told me.”

She laughed. “Lando never knows when to shut up, does he? You guys have that in common.”

“Yeah,” said Han. “Maybe so. Hey I’m not that bad, though, right?”

“No,” said Leia. “Sometimes I think you’re all right.”


	32. The Millennium Falcon

Han was acting more like himself, but there was a gravity to him that he hadn’t before Bespin. Like he’s finally grown up, thought Leia. There was a pleasant shared silence in the cockpit for a few minutes.

“What did Command want to talk to you about?” she asked, finally.

“You know I can’t tell you that,” he said.

“You know I’m _ on _ the council, right? I should know all this stuff already.” She sighed. Complaining like this was childish. _ I’m not a child. The only people who say that are children. _ “Don’t I outrank you? You shouldn’t know things I don’t.” 

He laughed. “Sorry, Princess.”

“Well, if we can’t talk about the mission, what _ are _ we going to do for the next hour?” she asked archly, leaning back in her seat and giving him a slightly challenging look.

He gave her a look she couldn’t quite read. “It sounds like you have some ideas.”

She looked down, smiling a little.

“Hey, uh…” Han cleared his throat a little. “I didn’t thank you. For, you know…”

“Saving you?”

“Yeah, that. Thank you. But you shouldn’t have done it,” he added. “You could have gotten killed, you know, Leia.”

“So what else is new?” she asked. “Shit, Han, I’m the Empire’s most wanted. I almost get killed twice a week. There’s no such thing as safety for me.”

“Well… I don’t want you dying for me,” said Han. “I’m not worth it.”

“I can decide for myself who’s worth it,” said Leia, and she took his hand.

The silence that fell then felt significant.

When Han spoke, his voice was rough, and he looked at their hands, instead of her face. “I got myself into that mess because I was an idiot. If something had happened to you because of my stupidity…” His hand tightened around hers. 

It was terrifying to see Han like this. She felt as if they were standing on ground that had just turned upside down.

“But nothing did happen,” she said.

“Nothing? Nothing happened? Leia. You had a chain around your neck. Do you have any idea what happens to beautiful girls in places like that?”

“Of course I do! I’m not stupid.” She took her hand back and crossed her arms over her chest, remembering the feel of Jabba’s damp, slimy hands on her skin and shuddering. She drew her feet up onto the chair and hugged her knees into her chest. “I’m not saying it wasn’t awful,” she said softly. “And yes, I was scared the whole time because I knew it was only a matter of time before—” She cut herself off before she could name the thing they were talking around. “But it could have been a lot worse. And it still would have been worth it to get you home.”

“It wouldn’t have been worth it to me,” he said.

“Well it’s not your decision,” she told him, firmly.

He nodded, reluctantly, and said, “I guess it’s not.”

It was too serious in this cockpit. She needed to lighten the mood, so she tried to tease him. “Anyway, since when is there anything worth more to you than your own life?”

But Han’s answer wasn’t playful. “You know since when.” 

“No I don’t,” she whispered, gazing out the window.

Neither of them said anything for a while. “How much farther?” she asked at last.

“We’re a little more than halfway,” he said. “You’re sick of me, huh?”

No. She wanted to know how much time she had left alone with him, how much longer she had to find out what was wrong, what had changed.

Finally, she just blurted it out. “What were you going to tell me?”

He furrowed his brow. “When?”

“On Bespin,” she said. “Remember? You said you wanted to tell me something, and I told you not to tell me until we were safe.”

“Oh,” he said, evasively. “It’s not important now.”

“It’s not?” She didn’t even try to hide the disappointment in her voice.

“I was gone for a while,” he said. “Things change. It’s okay.”

It’s not okay, she thought. But that seemed to be her answer, so she didn’t say anything more until they landed.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said.

“Anytime.” He smiled at her, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He looked sad, and she didn’t understand why _ he _ should be sad, when she was the one who’d just had her heart broken. 

She got up and started down the corridor toward the hatch. She could feel him behind her, keeping his distance.

“Hey, Leia, wait,” he said. She turned to look at him. He took two steps toward her and gathered her up in his arms and kissed her, very soft and gentle, and then he let her go. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Why not? she wanted to ask. But she didn’t say anything. Instead she pulled him toward her and kissed him, hard, and his arms went tightly around her waist and she was being pressed back into the wall and this was happening.

He broke away from her, breathing hard. “We have to go,” he said.

No, she thought. Stay here. If I let you go, maybe I’ll never get you back.

But she did let him go, and they disembarked.


	33. Near Sullust

She didn’t really see him again until the briefing. He was avoiding her, she knew, and she was, if anything, more hopelessly confused than she had been before they had talked on the Falcon. He had said so many things that sounded like “I love you:” he had told her that her safety was more important to him than his own, he had let her fly the ship! And then he had said that things had changed. What did that mean? Why had he kissed her, if things had changed? He was the most difficult to understand person she’d ever met.

She had too much time on her hands to think about this. It was entirely unproductive, and made her miserable besides, but she was at a loss for what else to do. She had abandoned the Alliance while they were planning this operation, so she had no particular role in it now. She finally presented herself to the supply teams to help pack up the things that the team going down to the surface of the moon would need. Ensuring that blasters were fully charged and operational, counting out packets of rations and other supplies. She had done work like this before she’d been promoted to Command. It was reassuring to have something concrete and useful to do.

Leia knew the general outline of the plan, which had been sketched out months ago, before she left for Tatooine, but there were several surprises at the briefing. The first, and most shocking, was the intel that Emperor Palpatine himself was supervising the construction of the new Death Star. The Emperor _ never _ left Coruscant. He never even left his palatial complex. He didn’t need to, and there were too many people who wanted him dead. Even most of the highest ranking officials in the entire Imperial bureaucracy and military had rarely seen him in the flesh. If he was on the Death Star, this could be their first and only chance to take him out.

Something about it didn’t quite feel right. Why would the Emperor leave the safety of the palace on Coruscant to go to a battle station that wasn’t even finished yet, and still vulnerable to attack?

The next surprise was that Lando was going to lead the main assault of fighters, and that he would be doing so as General Calrissian. They made _ Lando Calrissian _ a general? she thought with disbelief. Granted, he was a good pilot and handy in a fight; but this would be his first official Alliance battle.

The new Death Star was orbiting one of the moons of Endor, and the energy shield protecting it was being generated from the moon’s surface. A strike team would have to secretly land on the surface to deactivate the shield if the plan was going to be successful. “I wonder who they found to pull that off,” she remarked to Han, with a twinge of jealousy. She would have done it in a heartbeat. Instead she supposed she would be sitting around on a ship somewhere, waiting for news.

That was the next surprise, because she heard the words “General Solo,” and she looked up at Han, unable to disguise her shock. He gave her just a hint of that shit-eating grin she’d grown so fond of, before responding to General Madine that the strike team was assembled, but he needed a command crew for the shuttle. Perfect, though Leia, and she volunteered immediately. And Han was looking at her like he wanted to say something but wasn’t quite sure what it was, and she was beaming back at him and then the final surprise: Luke was here.

She had been scanning the crowd for him, before the briefing began, and had been disappointed. He had told her he’d be back for the mission, but he couldn’t have known when that would be. So when he walked in, saying “I’m with you, too!” her heart leapt. They would all be together. She went to embrace him.

There was something different about the way he was looking at her; as if he were seeing her for the first time. “What is it?” she asked him, and he shook his head.

“Ask me again, sometime,” he said, with an odd smile.

There had been that moment at the briefing between her and Han, when she thought everything was going to be all right between them after all, but after Luke showed up, Han seemed to pull away from her again. A tiny thread of a possible explanation began to unfurl in the back of Leia’s mind, but it seemed too absurd to even entertain. He couldn’t think that something was happening between her and _ Luke_?

“Hey,” she said, jogging to catch up with him after the briefing broke up. “When were you going to tell me about your promotion, _ General_?”

He shrugged, faux-nonchalant. “I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep it quiet as long as I did. You should have seen your face.”

“I’m gone for two days and suddenly everyone’s a general,” she said.

“Don’t worry, Princess,” he said. “You probably still outrank me.” He gave her a lopsided smile that made her stupid heart flip over, and then his eyes caught on something behind her and his expression changed. “You better get whatever you need to get, because we’re leaving in twenty.”

She turned to see what he was looking at, and it was Luke, walking up to them, beaming. He seemed so happy to be back; happier than she had seen him in a long time. She couldn’t help but beam back at him. She had missed Luke. 

“So,” Luke said. “What exactly are we doing?”

Leia burst out laughing. “You volunteered for a mission and you don’t even know what it is?”

He grinned. “Well, if you two are going, that’s where I should be, right?”

“Absolutely. I’ll let General Solo fill you in; he’s in charge.” she smiled playfully at Han, but he wasn’t looking at her. “I’m going to go help load up the shuttle.”

It was easy to ignore the disappointment and confusion she felt over Han’s strange behavior now that she had a mission. This might be the most important battle since the war started. She could figure out her love life afterward. _ If you’re still alive, _ she heard Cassian say in her mind.


	34. The Forest Moon

At first, things went pretty smoothly. There were a tense few minutes when they weren’t sure that the stolen Imperial codes were going to be accepted. Luke had that faraway look again, and in a monotone, he said, “Vader’s on that ship.” This made everyone nervous, even though there was really no way to know whether it was true. Unless you could use the Force, thought Leia. Which Luke could.

“I’m endangering the mission; I shouldn’t have come,” he went on.

“It’s your imagination, kid,” said Han, but he sounded more like he was trying to convince himself.

But they were given clearance to land, and they approached the forest moon. It was beautiful from space, all green forest with pockets of blue sea, draped in thin white clouds. It was equally beautiful from the surface. The forest was dense and lush. The trunks of the enormous trees were bright green with moss, and the understory was full of ferns. The air was cool and wet, as if it had recently rained, and it smelled of damp earth and decaying plant matter and the sharp woody smell of the trees. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d stood in a place like this: a living place. It sent a wave of homesickness through her. This wasn’t Alderaan, but it was as close as she’d been in a long time. Someday, she thought, when the war is over, I’ll live on a real planet again, a planet like this, with trees and moss and birds. And mountains, she thought, dreamily. Alderaan had so many mountains. 

“Hey, Leia.” It was Luke, watching her face. “Where are you?”

She shook herself awake. “Sorry. Sorry. It’s been a long time since I saw trees.” It probably sounded strange to a boy from a planet without any. “It reminds me of home.” Chewie made a small sound of agreement. Kashyyk was a forest world.

“Okay kids,” said Han. “We gotta get moving here.”

There was one blemish to Endor’s beauty: the partially-completed Death Star in the sky. Remember why you’re here, she told herself.

This mission was extremely dangerous, but she felt optimistic about it. She had Han, Luke, and Chewie with her, plus the droids, and ten of the most experienced members of Madine’s Pathfinders special forces. Han, Luke, and she could do anything if they were together. She believed that.

Their bad luck started simply enough, with a twig breaking under Han’s foot, which attracted the attention of the stormtrooper he was trying to sneak up on. Things spiraled from there. 

She regained consciousness because something was prodding her. She blinked her eyes awake and tried to focus her vision. She had been on a speeder, chasing a stormtrooper. The thing was outrageously dangerous, but she’d been so focused on stopping the stormtrooper from warning anyone else that she’d moved on instinct. Luke had been with her, she thought, but it was hard to remember exactly. At some point she must have fallen off. She hoped she didn’t have a concussion.

The thing prodding her was a fur-covered biped, about a meter tall, wearing a sort of wimple over its head. The thing it was prodding her with was a spear that was longer than the creature was tall. One of the indigenous life forms of this moon. She tried to remember if they’d gotten any intel on the inhabitants, but she didn’t think there had been much. Well why not? she thought, irritably. The creature was clearly intelligent; it had a weapon and clothing. We could have made them our allies, she thought. I doubt they’re very happy to have the Empire on their home. No one ever is.

Well, there’s still time to make friends. What else are you going to do? she asked herself. The creature was circling her warily, poking at her with its spear. “Cut it out,” she said, standing up. The creature jumped back, chattering and waving the spear. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she assured it. She turned in a circle, looking around. She had no idea where she was. She could have traveled dozens of miles on that speeder, not paying any attention. She knew better. Her old pathfinding teacher would have given her hell for such a mistake.

She would have to convince the wary little creature to trust her, so she would have to find a way to communicate. For now, she settled for talking in a calm, low voice and sitting down on an old fallen tree. It danced around and growled a little more, but when she pulled some rations out of her pocket and offered some to it, it came to sit beside her, talking to her in what seemed like a less suspicious tone.

They were starting to get along, when the creature suddenly became agitated, sniffing the air. “What is it?” she asked, as if she could understand his answer. The question answered itself when a blaster shot hit the tree trunk she was sitting on. She and her new friend both rolled over the log to crouch on the ground beneath. Using the tree for cover, she had her own gun up and ready to fire as soon as she spotted a target, but although another shot came at them, the forest was too thick to see the shooter. That’s going to be a problem later, Leia thought. _ That’s a problem now_, Cassian’s voice told her.

She didn’t know how they managed to get behind her, but there was a stormtrooper, with his weapon pointed right at her head. Great. She just couldn’t stop getting captured, could she? What else could go wrong? “Go get your ride,” the stormtrooper said, speaking to his partner, the one who’d been shooting at them. “Take her back to base.”

Her new small friend, who was hiding underneath the log, hit the stormtrooper with his spear, and he shouted and jumped, which was just enough distraction for Leia to grab a large tree branch and hit him in the head as hard as she possibly could. Stormtrooper armor barely deserved the name; it was more about aesthetics than anything else. The Empire wasn’t concerned with preserving the lives of its troops. They could always conscript more cannon fodder. So even with the helmet on, a solid hit to the back of the head could take down a stormtrooper. As soon as he started to crumple, she snatched her blaster back from him and shot after the second one. She hit the speeder, and it crashed and exploded, killing the second stormtrooper.

Those things are death traps, she thought, and distantly, her old politician’s brain reasserted itself. When we have a functioning government again, I’m going to get them banned.

With her foot, she prodded the stormtrooper that she’d hit with the tree branch, hoping that he was dead, and knowing it was unlikely. Killing someone in a fight was one thing; executing an unconscious man was something else. I don’t suppose it makes a difference to the person you kill, though, she thought. They’re just as dead either way.

He was alive, but still unconscious. She took a deep breath. He’d seen her face, and he had likely recognized her; along with Luke and Mon Mothma, she was at the top of the Empire’s list of most wanted, and had been there since Yavin. She couldn’t leave him alive if the mission was to have any hope of succeeding. It was likely that the Empire knew that there were rebels here, and if they didn’t know now, they certainly would soon, when they found the wreckage of the speeders. That was bad enough; if they knew that Leia was here, things would really get bad.

She shot the stormtrooper in the back of the head. She wondered who he was. There were some true believers in the stormtrooper corps, but most of them were just conscripts from poor territories out on the Rim, scooped up in their teens, given a modicum of training, and sent out with a blaster in their hand.

“Come on,” she said to her new friend. “Let’s get out of here.”

They moved cautiously through the trees. Leia didn’t holster her blaster, and she kept all her senses open to her surroundings. She wasn’t going to let anyone sneak up on her again.

They rescued two of her new companion’s fellows from stormtroopers before they got back to what must be his home. It was a remarkable place: a village of thatched buildings, suspended in the treetops and linked by wooden walkways and rope bridges. Leia had traveled all over the galaxy, but she had never seen anything quite like this. She remembered Chewie telling her once that Wookiees built their homes in the trees, and she wondered what he would make of this place.

Her friend had been telling the other two about her, she gathered, and all three of them seemed to be impressed that she was able to take out two stormtroopers so quickly. They pointed her to a rope ladder dangling out of one of the trees, and the first one beckoned to her as he started climbing. All right, she thought, and started following him. It was slow going; his arms and legs were much shorter than hers. They climbed for about 7 or 8 meters before reaching a platform. From here they were able to take a set of stairs which were built into a spiral around the trunk of the tree. At length, these stairs connected with a broad avenue that seemed to serve as a kind of town square. The largest building in the village was directly before them.

The inhabitants of the village had come out to meet them, and there was a great deal of chatter and excitement. Some of the small people looked at her with open curiosity, and others with obvious suspicion. She might be the first human who had ever been in this place, she thought.

Her little friend was talking animatedly, telling the story of how they’d met, killed two stormtroopers, and rescued his friends. The crowd seemed very interested and the curiosity and suspicion she saw in their eyes turned to respect and wonder.

The crowd parted to admit one of them who was slightly larger than average, with gray fur. He was accompanied by one who was striped and wore a headress with what looked like a large bird’s skull on it. The others all nodded their heads with respect as they passed. The village headman and the shaman, she thought. She bowed her own head respectfully as they approached her. There was some conversation between them and the ones who had brought her here, and then the chief raised his arms in a gesture that read like a welcome, and everyone gave a small cheer and started toward the large meetinghouse, sweeping Leia along with the tide.


	35. Bright Tree Village

She was, apparently, an honored guest. They offered her food and drink, which were excellent, and within an hour of her arrival, they had brought her a dress made of the same simple homespun cloth that those of them who were wearing clothing wore. Had they just made this? she wondered. Why would they have clothes that fit a human? She declined the gift twice, which was the polite thing to do in many cultures, and accepted on the third offer. One of the women took her by the hand and led her away from the large meetinghouse, up a short flight of stairs, and into a snug little room. A piece of cloth hung in the doorway. There was a makeshift bed on the floor made of blankets and furs, and a large pottery bowl filled with clean water, next to which was a cake of what must be homemade soap, and a little cloth. The creature mimed using the water to clean her face and then gestured to the dress. The message was clear enough. 

She undressed part way and wet the cloth to wash off. It did feel nice to get some of the sweat and grime off of her skin, although it was a bit chilly since the water wasn’t heated. Then she tugged the simple dress over her head. It fit loosely and comfortably.

There was a little brush sitting next to the bowl of washing water. They must like to keep their fur neat, she thought. She thought about it for a minute and decided there was no harm in taking her hair down and brushing it out. She felt quite safe with these people, even if they weren’t able to communicate. 

For no particular reason, she didn’t put it back up. She probably hadn’t ever worn her hair loose outside of her own home (back when she had one) before. It just wasn’t done on Alderaan, and especially not by a princess. But it seemed more appropriate for this rustic setting, somehow, and although it was unlikely that her hosts would know this, it was a way for her to signal that she trusted and liked them.

At some point, though, she was going to have to figure out how to get back in touch with the others. For right now, she would sit tight and see what help her hosts could be.

As the afternoon wore on toward evening, the village began to hum with excitement about something. All the little creatures were running around whispering to each other about some kind of big news that didn’t seem to be related to Leia’s arrival.

Her first companion came to the meetinghouse to get her, chattering excitedly and motioning for her to come with him, even grabbing her hand and tugging her along, outside to the main square. What she found there was something she absolutely did not expect.

3PO was sitting in a kind of throne, next to the large firepit in the center of the square. Hanging over the firepit, tied to a pole, was Han. Luke and Chewie were likewise bound to poles, next to it. All of them saw her and said her name at the same time. She rushed toward them, but was stopped by her hosts and their spears. “These are my friends,” she explained. “3PO, tell them that they must be set free.”

3PO started talking to the chief and the shaman, but they were unmoved. The shaman started shouting orders and some of the others started piling wood up underneath Han.

“Somehow, I got the feeling that didn’t help us very much,” remarked Han, who actually sounded quite calm for a man who was about to be burned alive.

Now Luke started talking nonsense. “3PO, tell them that if they don’t do as you say, you’ll become angry and use your magic.”

3PO started panicking. “Master Luke, _ what _ magic?”

“Just tell them,” said Luke, calm. 

3PO said some things to the assembly and the mood seemed to change as the creatures talked to each other nervously.

The shaman still stood firm, and then, slowly, 3PO lifted up into the air and began to spin. The droid was shouting in terror, but it probably sounded like spellcasting to the villagers. Whatever it was, it worked. The chief started barking orders and the prisoners were freed. Leia reached Han and Luke and they all enfolded each other in a relieved embrace. “What the hell is going on?” asked Leia.

“They think he’s a god and they were going to eat us,” said Han. “Why weren’t you on the menu?”

“I killed some stormtroopers,” she said. “So we’re all friends now.” Then she called over to 3PO, “what do these people call themselves?”

He asked them, and then replied. “I suppose the closet sounds in Basic would be ‘Ewok.’”

The Ewoks were quite taken with Chewie. He probably looked the most like a person to them, thought Leia, except that he was twice as tall as the tallest of them.

They were all escorted into the meetinghouse, where they sat down together, except for 3PO, who was set at the center of the room. Leia sat with Luke on one side of her and Han on the other. He gently touched a lock of her hair. “These guys are family to you now, huh? Must have been quite a day.”

She ducked her head and laughed a little. He remembered. Did he still think it was pretty? “You like it, huh? Hey, where’s the rest of the team?”

“I sent them on ahead,” he replied. “We had to find you.”

“You can’t do that,” she said. “You’re their general, you’re in command of this mission, you can’t just—”

“Well if I’m in command, I can do what I want, and what I wanted was to find you,” he interrupted.

“Doing whatever you want is not what being in command means,” she said, but she couldn’t help but smile a little.

“Leia, give me a break. Those guys know what they’re doing. Everything’s all planned out. They’ll be fine. You don’t really think I could worry about the damn deflector shield if I didn’t know you were safe?”

“None of us could,” Luke contributed. “We’re a team. You know that.”

“_That’s right_,” said Chewie.

She smiled at them. Her friends. Her family. She leaned her head against Luke’s shoulder.

Now 3PO began telling a story. As near as Leia could tell, he was summarizing all of their adventures since the war began. It took a long time for him to finish, and then the chief, the shaman, and a group of other Ewoks who must be leaders of the tribe began to discuss something among themselves. They came to an agreement, and the chief stood up and made an announcement. A rhythmic drumbeat started up and the Ewoks all cheered with excitement.

“What’s going on?” said Han, puzzled.

“I don’t know,” Leia replied.

“Wonderful!” exclaimed 3PO. “We are now a part of the tribe!”

Ewoks were running up to hug them and Han chuckled. “Just what I always wanted. Well, short help is better than no help at all.”

3PO said that the Ewok scouts would show them the quickest way to the shield generator, and it was like a switch flipped in Han, and suddenly he was a general, speaking in a quick, urgent voice to 3PO about what they needed. Leia took just a moment to admire him. He was so different than the arrogant, obnoxious man she had met four years ago. This version of Han must have always been there, somewhere. But she had seen Luke drift to the doorway and slip outside, and she was worried about him, so she took a last glance at the man she loved, and slipped out into the darkness to find Luke.


	36. Bright Tree Village

The Death Star hung huge in the sky like an enormous moon, and Luke was gazing up at it, looking sober and serious. She remembered the buoyant youth he had been when she met him. Who could have predicted he would become this grave young man? None of them had been the same since Bespin, she thought. Luke least of all. “Luke?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

He turned to look at her. He didn’t answer for a long moment, and then he asked a question she didn’t expect. “Leia,” he said. “Do you remember your mother? Your real mother,” he clarified, at the look of confusion that passed over her face.

She paused a moment. She didn’t love it when people said “real mother,” as if the mother who’d raised her didn’t really count. But she knew Luke didn’t mean any harm, and he’d never had a mother at all. And she did remember, sort of. She had been too young to form real memories, she knew that, but she had an impression of someone young, and beautiful, and sad, a feeling of overwhelming love, that she had always thought was her first mother. He pressed her a little, and she told him about it, hesitantly. She’d never talked about it before. “Why are you asking me this?”

He turned back to look out over the dark forest. “I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her.” 

She already knew that. Why was he talking about it now? There was something heavy in the air between them right now, something more than just the danger of their mission and the oppressive feeling of the Death Star overhead. It was that same deep wound she had felt in Luke ever since Bespin. The secret. _ Maybe I’ll tell you someday, Leia. _

“Luke, what’s troubling you?” She had asked him this every time she’d seen him since Bespin, and he’d never answered her. _ Maybe I’ll tell you someday, Leia. Not today. _

“Vader is here,” he answered. “On this moon.” 

She felt her stomach twist with alarm. “How do you know?”

“I felt his presence. He’s here for me, he can feel when I’m near.” Of course. The Force. The more Luke had studied it, the more remote and strange he’d become. Was that what all the Jedi had been like, when there were still Jedi? He went on. “As long as I’m here, I’m endangering the group and our mission here.” He’d said the same thing on the shuttle, she remembered. She started to protest, but he added, “That’s why I have to face him.”

To face him? After Vader had almost killed him on Bespin? He was stronger now than he had been then, but strong enough to face Vader? “Why?”

He took a deep breath and moved closer to her. Her skin tingled with a buzz of anxiety; today was the “someday.” He was going to tell her, and suddenly she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know. Whatever he was going to say would change things in a way she couldn’t predict. But Luke seemed unnaturally calm. “Because,” he said. “He’s my father.” She barely had a moment to interject before he moved even closer and said “there’s more,” his voice intense and fast now, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to say what he was going to say next. “It won’t be easy for you to hear it, but you must. If I don’t make it back, you’re the only hope for the Alliance.”

She backed away from him, confused and disturbed. The _ only _ hope? The Alliance was an _ alliance _ , there was no “only” hope. He was trying to tell her something else, something he didn’t know how to say and that she didn’t think she wanted to hear. _ You have a rare talent, Princess _.

“Luke, don’t talk that way,” she said. “You have a power— I don’t understand, and could never have.” She didn’t. She didn’t. _ She didn’t _.

“You’re wrong, Leia.” Why was he doing this now? “You have that power too. In time, you’ll learn to use it, as I have.” No. She wouldn’t ever look at someone the way he was looking at her now. She felt cold chills along her spine. Just say it, she thought. Just say it. He continued. “The Force… is strong, in my family. My father has it, I have it… my _ sister _ has it.”

That was it. Things snapped into place. She tried to say something, but nothing came out. “Yes,” he said. “It’s you, Leia.”

“I… know,” she said, wondering. It felt true. “Somehow… I’ve always known.” That sense of knowing when she’d seen him the first time. The way she had trusted him instantly, had loved him instantly. Because he was her brother.

“Then you know why I have to face him,” he said, relieved. 

That she most certainly did not. “No! Luke, run away! If he can feel your presence, then leave!” Vader would kill him, or he and the Emperor would break him, bend him to their will and make him one of them. “I wish I could go with you.” She almost offered to go, to take him away somewhere safe, to protect him, but she knew she couldn’t abandon her mission here, and she knew he wouldn’t agree.

“No you don’t.” He smiled. “You’ve always been strong.”

She didn’t want to be strong. She didn’t want any of this to be happening. _ You have a rare talent, Princess. You should be proud. _ Had he _ known_? Had he known all along? When he brought the mind probe to her cell, had he known? When he made her watch Han being tortured, had he known then? When he stood there and watched her tell Han that she loved him, did he know who she was?

“There is good in him,” Luke said. She shook her head again, disbelieving. “He won’t turn me over to the Emperor. I can save him. I can turn him back to the good side.” He had lost his mind. She was about to protest. “I have to try,” he said, with a note of apology in his voice.

She held him. Her brother. He still seemed unnaturally calm. He broke their embrace and smiled down at her, and then he turned and walked away.


	37. Bright Tree Village

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (this and the next chapter are where things get sexy)

She watched Luke until he disappeared into the trees, and then she continued staring after the place where she had last seen him, silently willing him to change his mind, to come back. The presence of the Death Star overhead felt more oppressive than ever. Should she have tried harder to stop him? He wouldn’t have listened to her. Her brother had made up his mind. He was as stubborn as she was, in his way.

Her brother. The instant he had said it, she had known that it was true. It explained everything; the way she had immediately trusted him, the connection and bond between them. Even his claim that she could use the Force made sense. Hadn’t she always had good intuition? Hadn’t she been dreaming true dreams every night for years? Now she understood why Vader had called her “gifted.” No. _ No_. Luke had to be wrong about who their father was. She wouldn’t believe it. 

But _ he _ believed it. If she ever saw him again, she would ask him how he knew. She barely even noticed that she had started to cry, until she sensed Han behind her. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” he asked. He didn’t touch her, but she wished he would.

“Nothing,” she lied, wiping her tears away. “I just— I just wanted to be alone for a while.”

“Nothing?” said Han. “Come on, tell me. What’s going on?” he sounded upset.

For a moment she considered telling him everything that Luke had just told her, but she found that she couldn’t. She couldn’t say it out loud yet. “I can’t tell you,” she said, almost losing the words in a sob.

“Could you tell Luke?” he said, angry. “Is that who you could tell?”

Oh honestly, she thought. He _ was _ jealous. That was what had been wrong with him ever since Tatooine. All that time wasted, because he was jealous of her _ brother?_ It was too ridiculous. She felt like she could almost laugh, but she was crying too hard. Han had started to walk away, and every nerve in her body was screaming for him to come back so she wouldn’t have to be alone with this awful new knowledge.

“Hey,” he said, voice contrite. “I’m sorry.”

It was something. She leaned into his body, barely choking out the words “hold me.” He was confused, but he put his arms around her and held her tightly as she cried into his shirt. Not so long ago this would have been too embarrassing to even imagine, but she didn’t care about that now. She loved him, and she knew that he loved her. She had felt as if she had come untethered from her body and might float away, but here, wrapped in his arms, she felt herself as a physical creature again, and it was a relief. She began to relax into him, and her tears gradually subsided.

When the worst of the storm had passed, Han looked down at her, brushed a thumb across her face, wiping away a tear. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked. There was no hint of jealousy left in his voice, only tenderness.

“I really can’t,” she said. “I need to… to think about it for a while. Maybe if we’re still alive this time tomorrow, I’ll tell you everything.” It was the kind of thing Cassian would have said: _ if we’re still alive. _

“Yeah, okay. Sure.” Han said, uncertain.

She sighed again, and made a decision. What was she waiting for? She loved this man, and he loved her. “I’m tired,” she said. “Let’s go to bed.” She took his hand and started to lead him toward the little hut she’d been shown to earlier, where they had set up the makeshift bed for her.

He paused a moment and she looked back at him, tugging gently at his hand. “Come on.”

He followed her, and she pushed through the curtain that served as a door, pulling Han into the room behind her. Her heart was beating wildly, and her skin felt all electric.

“Okay,” said Han, lingering near the doorway. “Um, well. Goodnight, Your Highness.”

“Han,” she said. Was he really going to make her spell it out for him? How much clearer could she possibly get? She took several slow, deliberate steps toward him, and then took his face in her hands and drew him down into a kiss. He seemed stunned, but he recovered from the shock and kissed her back. His hands were in her hair, her hair which was down, her hair that he had said was pretty, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to get as close to him as possible.

He broke the kiss and touched his forehead to hers. She was breathing hard. This. This was what she wanted. She felt her lips curving into a smile as she kissed him again, pulling his jacket down off his shoulders and discarding it on the floor. Then she started on the shirt.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey,” he said. “Slow down a minute.” She didn’t want to slow down, but she leaned back, biting her lower lip with uncertainty. “Are you... “ he trailed off. “Are you sure about this?”

“Am I sure about this?” she echoed, disbelieving. “You’ve been trying to get me into bed since the day we met.”

“Not the _ day _ we met,” he protested.

“Yes it was, it was the party after the Death Star, I said I was going to bed and you invited yourself along and then you kissed me.”

“That was pretty memorable for you, huh?” His eyes were smiling and she leaned up and kissed him again.

“Yeah," she admitted. “It was. Anyway, that was the day we met.”

“I’m pretty sure it was the next day,” he countered. “Anyway… I— that’s why it’s important that I know you really want this.”

She pressed her mouth against his again. “I want this.” She kissed him again. “I want this.” She kissed him again. “I _ want _ this.” She looked into his eyes, and shivered a little. I want _ you_, she thought.

He kissed her then, more firmly than he had before, and his hands on her hips pulled her close against his body. He ran a hand up her back and along the back of the collar of the dress. “Damn,” he said softly. “How did you get this on?”

She started giggling, feeling giddy and a little scared, but in a good way. “First time undressing a girl, Solo?”

He silenced her with another deep kiss. She broke it long enough to tug his shirt over his head and wrapped her arms around his neck again. They stumbled toward the makeshift bed, wrapped up in each other and laughing. She raised the hem of her dress and he helped her pull it over her head, and then she was standing there in just her underthings, which, she realized now, were not exactly sexy. Well, she hadn’t come down to this moon intending to seduce anyone, and Han didn’t seem to mind. 

She had thought that she might feel shy when he saw her undressed, but she didn’t. The way he looked at her… she felt powerful.

She sat down on the pile of blankets, not sure what to do next. He followed her, running one hand up her leg and along her thigh. She lay back and closed her eyes for a minute, as his hand moved up, following the lines of her waist and then over one of her breasts, along her collarbone, and finally to her face. 

“You are the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.

She smiled and trailed her fingers along the back of his neck. He bent and kissed her again, and then began to kiss her neck. She let her head fall back and sighed with pleasure. His free hand was travelling down her body again, so gently it made her desperate for more. She squirmed a little, trying to give some temporary relief to the familiar heat and pressure between her legs. His kisses moved down from her neck and he kissed her between her breasts, softly, then wrapped his mouth around one. She gasped and her hips lifted up off the pile of blankets. He lifted his head and grinned at her, with just a hint of smugness.

His fingers were tracing little circles and patterns over the inside of her thighs and she was wild with how much she wanted — needed — him to touch her at the source of the ache, but he moved slowly, circling closer but never quite reaching it. “Please,” she gasped. “Please.”

“Please?” his face was up against the side of hers, his lips just next to her ear. “Please what?” His hand passed so close to where she so desperately wanted it that she groaned in frustration, lifting her hips and squirming, trying to get closer, but he evaded her. “Please what?” he asked again. “What do you want, princess?” His voice was soft and tender, but still playful. He knew damn well what she wanted, but he was enjoying tormenting her.

She didn’t know how to say it, so she just kept repeating “please, please, please,” and then finally his fingers brushed between her legs and she let out a little cry and then, as his fingers moved on, she pleaded “_that_.”

“That? What that? This?” He trailed a little circle on her hip and she shook her head. “This?” He stroked her thigh. “_This_?” He brushed lightly between her legs again.

“Yes, yes, _ that_.” The words tumbled out of her. “Do that, don’t stop that.”

He kissed her on her mouth and on her neck and her breasts, and all the time his hand was making gentle, deliberate circles right where she had wanted it, and her hips were rising and falling to meet him. And then he withdrew his hand and her eyes flew open and she said “no, don’t stop.”

He dropped a light kiss on her mouth and she could feel him smiling. ‘Not stopping,” he promised. His fingers slipped just below the waist of her underwear. “I thought maybe… do you want to take these off?” He was looking into her eyes so tenderly. 

She nodded her head, trembling again, and breathed out a yes. He carefully slid them down her legs, kissing her belly and along the top of her pubic bone, and then she was no longer wearing anything at all. And then his hand slid back up between her legs, and resumed making those perfect little circles, but now he was touching her directly, and his fingers were slippery, and it felt so _ good._ He was touching her the way she’d touched herself so many times, but this was better, because it was _ him_, and she loved him, and it was too much, it was too much, and then everything condensed into a delicious shudder that passed through her, and she fell back, gasping for breath.

He watched her face, not stopping right away, but slowing down, and gradually widening the motions until he was stroking her belly and thighs again. She kept trembling and shivering as little aftershocks of pleasure rippled through her. Leia had made herself come plenty of times, but it had never been like this. Han lay down next to her, propped up on one arm, and traced lazy little patterns over her body. 

“Oh, did you like that?” he asked, teasing. 

She couldn’t even answer; she was still trying to catch her breath. Han kissed her shoulder. She wanted to look at him, but she was so relaxed and satisfied that even opening her eyes seemed like too much effort. And everywhere his skin touched hers, she felt little shivers. She finally managed to blink her eyes open, drowsily, and say, “hi.”

“Hi,” he said back, smiling. He looked very pleased with himself, she thought. But why shouldn't he be? She was pleased with him, too.

She rolled over to face him, touching his face with one hand. He kissed her palm. She closed her eyes again and sighed, contented. What had she been waiting for, hung up on pride all these years when she could have had _ this_? Starting to recover, she kissed him and reached down between them, trying to undo his trousers. He caught her hands and stopped her. “Save something for next time,” he said.

“You don’t want…?” she said, confused.

“Let me ask you something,” he said, lacing his fingers through hers and raising their joined hands so he could kiss her fingers. “Don’t get mad.”

She groaned. “Whenever you say that, you follow it with something that’s going to make me mad.”

He laughed. “Yeah, usually. But humor me this one time, will you?” He ran a hand over her shoulder and down her arm, making her shiver again. “Have you done this before? Slept with anyone?”

If she weren’t already flushed from the orgasm, she would have blushed. He must know she hadn’t. She’d as good as told him so on the way to Bespin. She shook her head. “No.”

“Okay, so. Save something for next time,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re always going somewhere, Solo.”

“Not this time,” he said, and it sounded like a promise. “I— well. You know.”

She knew.

She fell asleep still wrapped in his arms, and for the first time she could remember since Alderaan had been destroyed, she didn’t dream about anything.


	38. Bright Tree Village

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (this is the other sexy chapter)

She woke in the blue-gray light of early dawn. She lay, sleepy and content, and listened to the dawn chorus of birds outside. How long had it been, she wondered, since she had woken up to birdsong?

Han was asleep next to her, one arm still draped across her waist, and she studied his face for a moment. Han. The man she loved. Her lover. She felt a stir of excitement between her legs at the memory of what they’d done the night before, and smiled secretly to herself, thinking about “next time.”

If there was a next time. If they didn’t all die today. She couldn’t take her eyes away from his face, she couldn’t get out of the bed. What if this was their last chance? She traced her fingers over the lines of his face, remembering how he had stroked her face when he couldn’t see.

“Hey,” he said, still half asleep.

“Hey,” she replied, still gently touching his face. She couldn’t wait until next time. She leaned in and kissed him. He let her roll him onto his back, and she knelt over him, one knee on each side of his hips. “Good morning,” she said, kissing his chest and experimentally running her tongue over one of his nipples. He answered with a low groan and his hips rose off the blankets, up against her, and he was hard and he wanted her. She smiled. It felt _ good _ to be wanted so badly. No wonder he had looked so satisfied last night. She kissed his lips again, as his hands ran along the back of her thighs and onto her backside, pulling her gently down toward him. He moaned her name and she rubbed herself up against him harder and he moaned her name again. She liked it. She liked the way her name sounded when he said it like this — as if he were helpless, as if he were begging for something only she could give. 

She started unbuttoning the buttons he had not let her undo the night before, and this time he didn’t protest, just lifted his hips so she could pull his trousers off, and then she was looking at him and he was naked, and as badly as she wanted this, she felt a little lost. She had imagined this enough times; it should be easy, but he was so much older than her. He must have done this hundreds of times, while she, stupidly, had not let herself get involved with anyone since she was sixteen, and now here she was, twenty-three years old with no real experience to draw on, just her imagination.

His eyes found hers and he started to sit up. “Hey,” he said again, so tenderly she thought it would break her wide open. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just..." she looked down, embarrassed. “I guess I’m not totally sure what I’m doing.”

He smiled and kissed her face. “That’s okay,” he said. “Nobody really knows what they’re doing at first.”

She blushed. “But you know what _you’re_ doing,” she said. “It’s not fair.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry,” his hands ran up and down her back. “I’ll take good care of you.”

She gave him a mock frown. “I hate it when you tell me not to worry.”

“Sorry,” he said. “But you do worry a lot more than you need to.” She laughed a little, and he kissed her gently. “There’s nothing to worry about right now, okay? We don’t have to—”

“Oh _ will _ you shut _ up_?” she interrupted, kissing him so forcefully he went all the way back down onto his back on the bed. She reached for his erection and wrapped her hand around it carefully. She would figure it out. It couldn’t be that complicated. His head fell back and his hips lifted and his lips parted so she kissed him again, moving her hand slowly up and down on him. He was breathing hard, like she had the night before, so she kept doing what she was doing, moving a little faster now. “Is that okay?” she asked him.

He made a low groan and nodded his head. “That’s good.” He still had his hands on her hips, and now he moved one back between her legs, but this time, he slid one finger a little way inside, and without thinking about it, she thrust herself down to meet it. “Is that all right?” he panted. Their faces were so close, she could feel his lips move against hers when he spoke.

“That’s good,” she echoed. “Oh that’s— I like that. Keep doing that.”

He added a second finger and it was taking all of her concentration not to let go of him to just focus on how good she felt.

He rolled her over so their positions were switched; she on her back and him leaning over her. She’d lost her grip on him, but she could feel it pressing against her thigh. “Leia,” he breathed into her ear, and her name sounded like a question. “Is this— do you want—?” 

She said yes before he had finished asking, and kissed him hard. She was a little nervous; she was trembling again, but this was what she wanted.

He took a deep breath which came out in a soft groan, and then he gently moved her so that her legs were spread wide and he steadied himself with a hand on her hips, holding her where he wanted her to be, and slowly, slowly, she felt him push inside her. It felt a little strange, but not in a bad way. She had heard that sometimes it was painful, especially the first time, but it wasn’t. It was just intense. She took a deep and shaky breath to calm herself.

“You all right?” he asked, holding still while she adjusted to the new sensation. She could feel how much effort it took for him to go so slowly, and she felt a rush of tenderness and love for him.

“I’m good,” she promised. He moved a little and she drew another quick breath. This was right. This was what she wanted. She let her legs fall around his waist, and she ran her hands up along his back and into his hair, pulling his face down to meet hers. Han. The man she loved. He moved inside her again, gently, slowly, and she gasped out his name, and that made him move a little harder, and a little faster. She let her head fall back and her eyes close, and she focused on the little flares of pleasure she felt where he was pressing against her, and she let everything else fall away except this, this, _ this_.

And after a while she felt him withdraw and he made a wild animal sound as his thrust his hips into the bedding, and then he lay still, breathing hard. This was the wise thing, she knew, the responsible thing; the last thing she needed was a pregnancy. But still, she felt a tiny stab of disappointment.

After a moment, he opened his eyes and looked at her adoringly, and then he slipped his fingers back inside her and moved them quick and firm and then she was coming, and then they were both still and satisfied.

“Well that was nice,” he offered at last, and she started giggling, and then he started laughing, too, and she didn’t know what was funny about the situation but she couldn’t stop laughing and kissing his face and touching the lean muscle of his body and she wanted to stay right here in this moment forever, she was so _ happy_, and so of course C3PO pushed through the curtain that served as a door to her room.

“Princess Leia?” he called out. “It’s nearly time to leave! You need to get ready, and nobody can find General Solo _ or _ Master Luke and— oh! Oh my goodness!” And Leia wondered how it was possible for a droid with no facial expressions to look so shocked.

“Thank you, 3PO,” she said. “We’ll just be a minute.” And as the droid backed out of the room babbling and apologizing, she and Han collapsed in helpless laughter again.

“Oh perfect,” groaned Han. “He and R2 are the biggest gossips in the galaxy; the whole team is gonna know everything before we get our pants back on.”

Leia felt too warm and happy to complain about anything. “Oh, were you planning on keeping it a secret?” she teased. “Afraid your other girls will get jealous?” She kissed his face, laughing.

To her surprise, Han didn’t play along. “There’s no other girls,” he said, seriously, touching her face. “There’s only you.”

She laughed again, happy, and kissed his hand. “I know. Anyway, I don’t care if 3PO tells the whole galaxy. People have been talking about us for years. They’ll probably be relieved. Do you know what Luke told me one time, back on Hoth—” she started giggling too hard to relay the story. _ I wish you two would just get together already. You’re making everyone crazy_.

But mentioning Luke only seemed to make Han more sober and serious. He frowned. For heaven’s sake, thought Leia. He can’t _ still _ be feeling jealous after what just happened. Impossible man. She kissed him and hopped to her feet. “Time to get dressed, General. We’ve got a war to win.”

The Ewoks continued to be excellent hosts, providing a hearty morning meal of roasted meat and piles of fresh fruit. Leia asked 3PO to discreetly find out what kind of animal the meat had come from, and satisfied with the answer, they tucked in. Definitely an improvement over the freeze dried rations they’d brought with them. As they ate, Han finally asked about Luke. “Did 3PO say no one knew where Luke was? Where did he go last night?”

She shook her head. “He… he had to do something.”

He frowned. “Something more important than the mission?”

She shrugged. “He thought so.” 

“Well? I mean are you gonna tell me?”

“I can’t, Han. If he comes back, he can tell you himself.”

“_If _ he comes back? What the hell is this about, Leia?”

“Just trust me okay?” She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “I can’t tell you anything now. I just can’t. Let’s not fight about it again.”

He nodded, his expression distant. “Han,” she said, reaching for his hand. He pulled away, and she felt her heart contract.

Outside, she looked up at the sky. The incomplete Death Star loomed overhead, dominating the view. Was Luke up there? Was he still alive? She had to believe that she would know if he died. Hadn’t he said they were linked by the Force? She had sensed him call out to her at Bespin, had saved him then. She would know. He was still alive. He had to be. She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold. What had he been thinking, going to face Darth Vader alone? And the Emperor was up there! Even if he was right, even if Vader _ was _ his father — their father — how could he think he had a chance of “saving” him? Luke hadn’t been in that cell on the first Death Star with Vader and the mind probe. There was nothing there to save. Luke was going to his death, or worse.

She wished that her parents were here. Her _ real _ parents. She would ask them if it were true, and they would be honest with her. They had hidden it from her to protect her, but now they would tell her the truth. But she couldn’t ask them. They were dead. Vader had killed them. 

Han walked up behind her. “Hey,” he said, a little cautious.

She glanced at him. “Hey. You ready to do this?”

“Ready as I’m gonna get,” he agreed.

“You know this is crazy, right?” she asked him. “You really think we’re getting off this rock alive?”

“Sure we will,” he said. “We always do. Hey. Trust me.”


	39. The Forest Moon

They almost didn’t. It was a trap. The Empire had known they were coming.

It was the Ewoks who saved them; they swarmed the bunker, using rocks and logs as weapons. They even had a catapult. It unleashed chaos, and in it, the rebels managed to rearm themselves and now there was a real battle raging. Han and Leia both dove for the bunker doors to try to get themselves in and blow the shield generator. The code they’d used before no longer worked, so she called R2D2 on the comm, hoping he was out there somewhere and could help them get the doors open. In the meantime, she and Han hunkered down, shooting.

When R2 arrived, he plugged himself into the bunker’s control panel and started whirring and beeping. Then a piece of the wall exploded and the little droid emitted a shriek. It didn’t look good. C3PO was wailing, and Han rushed to look at the door panel. “Well, I guess I could hotwire this thing,” he said, sounding less than completely confident.

“I’ll cover you.” She kept shooting. 

“I think I got it!” Han was shouting. “I got it, I got it!” He hadn’t got it, but Leia didn’t have a minute to think about it, because that’s when she got shot. She hissed in pain and gripped her shoulder where the blaster burn was. Han ran to her. “Let’s see.”

There was something so tender in the way he said it. She gritted her teeth and insisted, “it’s not bad.” It wasn’t that bad. It hurt, but it wasn’t lethal. She wanted to tell him to get back to working on the door, but then she saw the stormtrooper behind him, and heard the order to freeze. 

Han did freeze. He looked at her, stricken. She shook her head a little and showed him the blaster in her hand. A slow, beautiful smile spread over his face and he finally said, “I love you.”

She nodded, eyes locked on his, a half smile playing on her lips. “I know.” 

He stood up, hands in the air, and slowly turned around, hiding Leia and her weapon from sight until the last moment, when she fired it and took the stormtrooper down. Han turned to look at her and the smile slowly fell off his face as he saw the walker approaching. They stared it down together. Then Chewbacca popped out of the top, howling.

Han grinned wildly. “I’ve got an idea.”

In the end, they managed it; they took out the shield generator. The chaos continued for another twenty minutes or so, but by the end of it, the wild little Ewoks had taken care of most of the Imperial troops, and the rest had scattered when they saw the Death Star go up in flames in the sky above them. There was cheering around her, but all Leia could think of was Luke. She would have felt it if he had been on the station, she was sure. She tried to summon the Force within her; what did it feel like? _ Luke? _she asked.

She felt the answer immediately. _ I’m here. I’m all right. I’ll see you soon. _She smiled, relieved.

When she came back to herself she saw Han watching her with an unreadable expression. “I’m sure Luke wasn’t on that thing when it blew,” he said, and although he said he was sure, it sounded like a question.

“He wasn’t,” she said. “I can feel it.”

His brow was wrinkled, as if he were worried about something, and finally he said, slowly, “you love him, don’t you?”

“Well, yes,” she replied, truthfully. She did love Luke. She’d always loved Luke. And she might as well let him squirm for a minute after everything he’d put her through lately.

“All right,” he said. “Fine, I understand. When he comes back, I won’t get in the way.”

This ridiculous man, so easily wounded. She smiled, but held back the urge to laugh. “It’s not like that at all. He’s my brother.” She smiled up at him, enjoying the look of surprise that spread across his beautiful face.

“Your _ brother_?” he repeated. She nodded, still grinning, and watched the surprise turn to understanding as she drew him in for another kiss.

“Is that why you’ve been acting so weird?” she asked, when they’d finally broken the kiss. “You thought I was in love with _ Luke_?”

“I haven’t been acting weird,” he protested, and she rolled her eyes.

“Yes you have,” she said. “I thought we were going to spend the whole trip back from Tatooine in your bed, and instead you barely looked at me.”

He groaned. “Don’t tell me that.”

She kissed him again. “I just want to make sure you know what an idiot you are.”

The party this time was even wilder than when they’d destroyed the first Death Star, thanks to their hosts, who broke out casks of some extremely powerful spirit they brewed here. There was drumming and dancing and an enormous bonfire, and up in the sky, fireworks. And this time she couldn’t stop touching Han. She leaned back into his arms and watched the fireworks, spellbound, and as happy as she could ever remember being. She didn’t want this night to end. 

Then again, she thought, as he moved her long, loose hair out of the way so he could bend down and kiss her neck, maybe she wouldn’t mind calling it an early night. She tilted her face up toward him and he bent to kiss her. 

“Maybe we should get out of here,” she suggested in voice so quiet it was almost a whisper.

He ran his fingers through her hair. She loved the way it felt when he touched it. Maybe she would just leave it down from now on. “Where do you want to go, Princess?” he asked in that low, teasing voice that she found so unbearably sexy now.

“Anywhere,” she said.

“Too late,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “Lando’s here.”

“Lando’s here?” She sat upright and her burned shoulder complained.

Sure enough, Lando Calrissian was approaching. They got up to greet him, Han being careful of Leia’s injury, and Chewie appeared, too. He had been keeping his distance from Han and Leia, whether to give them a little privacy or because he was sick of watching them fawn over each other like a couple of kids, she wasn’t sure.

“So you’re alive,” said Han. “I guess that means my ship’s all right?”

Leia laughed, and Lando confirmed that the Falcon was fine. Han raised his cup like a toast and drained it. “Well, where is she?” he demanded. “I need to go see her.”

“His one true love,” said Leia, laughing at him. “See, I knew there was another girl.”

“Hey,” said Han. “What can I say? I’ve known her a lot longer.” And then he bent and kissed her. She heard Chewie groan and she broke off the kiss, blushing, and took a drink from her cup.

“Finally,” said Lando. “I’ve been on the edge of my seat for this situation to resolve.”

“Shut up, Lando,” she said, but there was no real malice behind the words anymore. He was one of them now.

They sat and drank and laughed and traded stories, and then she saw Luke appear at the edges of the firelight. “Luke!” she stood up and dragged Han to his feet behind her. Then there was more hugging, and crying, and laughing, and she wanted to ask him a million questions but she knew it would keep until later, when they had some time alone. Luke was still quiet and grave, but he no longer seemed as haunted. He would tell her everything later, she knew. 

They all sat together by the fire. Neither Luke nor Leia said much, but Han and Lando talked enough for all of them, running over old arguments that had worn smooth over the years. She leaned against Han, who kept his arm around her waist, and let her eyes fall closed, feeling sleepy and happy and safe.


	40. The Forest Moon

The next morning, a pair of helmetless, unarmed stormtroopers surrendered to them at the Millennium Falcon. They came out of the trees, hands over their heads, and everyone’s weapons were trained on them in an instant.

“Don’t shoot, please,” one of them said. He had close cropped black hair and dark eyes. When you could see them with their helmets off, you could see how young they were. Just kids, thought Leia. They looked terrified. “We surrender. We’re unarmed. Please.”

“Keep your hands up,” said Leia. “Chewie, Lando, go check them for weapons.” While they were being checked out, she and Han kept their blasters trained on them.

“Looks clean,” said Lando, and Chewie agreed.

“Bind their hands,” she said.

“_What are we going to do with them_?” asked Chewie.

She glanced at Han. “General?”

“Hey, mission’s over, I’m not in charge anymore. It’s your call.”

“We just want to get off this planet,” said the second stormtrooper, who had short red hair. “They… _ ate _ some of our comrades.”

“We could kill them,” said Lando. “It’s what they’d do to us.”

The troopers looked even more terrified than they had before.

You, maybe, thought Leia. They probably don’t know who you are. “I think we can set our standards a little higher than that,” she said. “We don’t do summary executions. We better call it in to the admiral.”

“Have to get in the air to get a signal to space,” said Han. “It’ll never make it through these trees.” 

“Okay,” she said.

“Where are we putting them?” said Lando as they herded the two troopers aboard the ship.

“Shove ‘em in one of the cargo holds,” said Han. “One of the smaller ones.”

“You and I should talk to them,” Luke said to Leia. “We’ll be able to tell if they’re telling us the truth.”

Leia groaned. “This is really not how I was hoping to spend the day.” She had been hoping to spend it in bed with Han.

Once they were in the air, Han called to Home One for instructions, and Leia and Luke went back to the cargo hold where the prisoners were waiting.

“What are you going to do with us?” asked the redhead.

“We’re not sure yet,” said Leia. “But I can assure you it won’t be as bad as what you would do with us if our situations were reversed. What are your names?”

They paused and glanced at each other nervously. The dark haired one said “My designation is AT-8990.”

“SL-9907,” said the redhead.

“Those aren’t names,” Leia said. “Those are numbers.”

“We don’t— we haven’t used our actual names in years. They take them away,” explained the darker one. “When they take you.”

“Take you?” asked Luke.

“Yeah, they… They just showed up one day at my village and they took all the boys. Everyone who was older than twelve and wasn’t, you know, sick or disabled or something. If you refused to go they started shooting members of your family. They shot my little sister.”

Leia and Luke shared a look. This story was true. She felt a little sick. She had known that most stormtroopers were conscripts. She hadn’t thought much about what that really meant.

“How old are you?” she asked him.

“Seventeen.” Shit. Seventeen years old. That was younger than she’d been when Alderaan was destroyed, younger than Luke had been when his aunt and uncle were murdered.

“Okay,” she said. “So. I’ll be honest with you guys. You’re probably not important enough to warrant a trial. That’s not my call, but this war isn’t over yet and we need to focus on the major players. If you cooperate, I expect you’ll be permitted to return home at some point.”

“What if we want to join up?” asked the redhead.

“Join up?” she repeated.

“I don’t want to go back home,” he said. “I’m from Wobani. I saw you there,” he added. “When I was thirteen. You came to Wobani, do you remember?”

She stared at him for a moment, too surprised to speak. “I remember,” she said. It had been her first humanitarian mission, when she was sixteen. She’d gone to Wobani to distribute humanitarian aid, and been so shocked and horrified by the conditions of the people who lived there that she’d concocted a crazy scheme that got a hundred people off the planet. She’d taken them home with her to Alderaan. 

It had backfired, though. Her father had explained to her later that he’d been on the verge of getting something through the Senate that would have improved conditions on that planet, but the Empire was so angry about what Leia had done that it had stopped the whole thing. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That didn’t work out the way I hoped it would.”

“You got my cousin out,” he said. “If you hadn’t, he would have ended up like me. They took me two years later, when I was fifteen. I hate them. I would have defected years ago if I could, but I was too scared. I’m telling you the truth,” he said, pleading. “I want to join up.”

“That’s not my call,” she said again. “But I’m sure it will be taken under consideration. A lot of us used to be part of the Imperial machine. Your cousin,” she said hesitantly. “Do you know if he was still on Alderaan when…?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But even if he was there, at least he didn’t have to do what I’ve done.”

She wondered if she had dreamed the death of the stormtrooper’s cousin yet.


	41. Home One

Leia kept meaning to talk to Luke, but when she wasn’t working, she was usually with Han. They couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. We’re just making up for lost time, she thought. It’ll slow down eventually.

Except she didn’t want it to slow down, so that thought only drove her to be with him more.

After they’d ditched their friends yet again to make love in her quarters (which were, de facto, _ their _ quarters, as Han had not spent a single night in his own since they’d made it back to the flagship), and they were lying sprawled together in the aftermath, trying to catch their breath, Leia started giggling, as she sometimes did afterward, and asked, “what do you think they’re saying about us out there?”

“Probably that I’m the galaxy’s best lover,” Han said, deadpan.

“Oh? Is that a fact?”

“The evidence is pretty compelling,” he said, running his fingers along her spine, sending lovely shivers through her. “Anyway, like you said, everybody’s been talking about us for years. What else are they gonna say now? Shit, you should have heard the stuff Chewie was saying on the way to Bespin.”

She propped her head up. “What?” He just grinned and shook his head. “Tell me!” She was laughing and he kissed her.

“Well, you know, he may have said something like ‘if you two don’t stop eyefucking each other all the time I’m going to open the hatch and vent us all into space.’ Rough translation,” he added. “But that’s the general idea.”

She was screaming with laughter. For some reason it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “Poor Chewie,” she said at last. “We must have been _ insufferable_. Can you imagine being trapped on a ship with those kids?”

“Yeah, there may also have been something about ‘I’m not your babysitter, if you’re going to act like this at least do it somewhere else.’ Anyway he had a point. There I was, just trying to do my job, and this girl just won’t leave me alone—” She shut him up by kissing him.

Their behavior did not go unnoticed, although most people didn’t say much about it. After about a week, Mon Mothma pulled Leia aside and kindly but firmly reminded her that as a member of Alliance High Command, she was expected to be at all council meetings.

“I know,” Leia said, shamefaced. “I’m sorry, Chancellor. I’ll be there. I haven’t been myself recently.”

“No, you haven’t,” said Mon Mothma. “You’re a great deal happier than I’ve seen you in a very long time. But we still have work to do, my dear. And there are a number of long-haul missions at the other side of the galaxy for which General Solo is an excellent candidate.”

Leia nodded. “I understand.” How embarrassing.

So she got her act together during work time, but while off duty… that was a different story. It wasn’t until Amilyn arrived on Home One a few weeks later that she really managed to break the spell.

Amilyn had been out chasing down Imperial ships, and was back to give a report to High Command. After her meeting with the council, she and Leia walked arm-in-arm down the corridors of the enormous ship. “So where are all your friends?” she asked.

“Somewhere around here,” said Leia.

“Well let’s find them. I’d love to catch up with Solo.” Leia tried hard not to blush. “I’ve heard some things about you, you know.” Amilyn looked at Leia with a delighted smile. “Some very _ interesting _ things.”

“I’m sure you’re too smart to listen to gossip,” said Leia, primly.

Amilyn watched Leia and Han like a bird of prey, eyes narrow.

“You know, it’s not polite to stare,” Leia said.

Amilyn rolled her eyes, shrugged, and started talking to Lando. “So what’s your deal? You’re the gambler, right? The mining-colony-slash-luxury-casino guy?”

“That’s me,” he replied, smooth as ever. “Also the general who led the assault on the Death Star.”

“Yeah, sure. What’s your game? You seem like a Sabaac guy, am I right?”

“Dead on,” said Lando, who was instantly smitten by Amilyn.

“You got cards? Deal ‘em. Skywalker, you play?”

“Don’t do it, Luke,” said Leia. “She’s a shark.”

Han whispered something in her ear and she covered her mouth to hide her smile. With Amilyn seemingly distracted, they tried to get up and discreetly sneak out of the room, and then she heard Amilyn casually ask Luke, “how long have those two been acting like this?”

Leia flushed and tried to get out the door, hearing Luke respond, awkwardly, “uh, pretty much since Endor.”

Amilyn stood up and tossed her cards down. “Leia Organa! I need to talk to you, right now.”

Leia froze, but Han immediately faded away. "You coward!" she hissed after him. He threw up his hands, mouthed an apology, and fled down the passageway as Amilyn approached.


	42. Home One

“Oh, hi,” said Leia, hearing exactly how stupid she sounded.

“Oh, hi!” Amilyn said back. “Let’s have a little talk. How far to your quarters? Not far, I’m guessing? Guessing you don’t get very far away from them ever, these days?”

“Amilyn, give me a break! You’re the one who—”

Amilyn waved her off. “Me and everyone else in the galaxy. Come on, lead the way.”

Leia relented and took Amilyn to her quarters. Amilyn looked around suspiciously. “Is there any furniture in here you haven’t had sex on?”

“Amilyn!” Leia said, shocked, but not that shocked.

“Well?” 

Leia pointed to the armchairs and Amilyn threw herself into one, dangling her long legs over one of the arms. “Well, well, well, well, Princess Leia! What have _ you _ been up to since I saw you last?”

“If all you’re going to do is make fun of me, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” said Leia.

“I’m not making fun of you,” said Amilyn. “This is _ great_. But look, sit down a minute.” Leia did as she was told. “You are going to kill that man if you don’t slow it down a little. He’s like forty.”

“He’s not _ forty_,” Leia objected.

“Oh yeah?” said Amilyn. “How old is he?”

Leia hesitated. “Thirty-six,” she admitted.

Amilyn _ shrieked _ with laughter. “Thirty-six! He’s thirty-six! Leia! I love you, you lunatic. Saving yourself all this time—”

“I wasn’t saving myself!” Leia protested. “I just wasn’t interested in anyone.”

“Except Solo.”

“Except him,” she admitted. “But, you know. He’s _ thirty-six_.” She mimicked Amilyn’s tone.

“All right,” said Amilyn. “Tell me everything. Last time I saw you, you were heartbroken, and now you’re all over each other. Did he finally come to his senses, or did you?”

“We both did, I guess,” said Leia.

“Oh come on,” said Amilyn. “Give me some details. I mean he must be something _ else _ if you’ve been going at it every day for the last month.”

“Amilyn! No!”

“Come on, tell me one little thing,” she said. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to be able to talk to you about this kind of stuff? You’re always so uptight.”

“I’m not uptight!” She was laughing. This was what normal girls did, wasn’t it? It was nice. “And I’m not telling you anything, that’s private.”

“Well if you want it to stay private you shouldn’t do it in front of everyone,” said Amilyn. “Geeze, people are talking.”

“People are always talking,” said Leia. “They were saying that stuff back when we hated each other.”

“Oh, he never hated you,” said Amilyn. “That man was head over heels in love with you from the second he met you, I’m sure of it. I mean! How could he not be?”

“Oh come on, Amilyn. He was the biggest jerk I ever met.”

“He joined the rebellion for you, didn’t he?”

Leia wasn’t sure about that. “I was gone for six months after Yavin. If he joined for me, why did he stay?”

“He was hoping you’d come back. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” echoed Leia, rolling her eyes. “You know, I didn’t realize you were such a romantic, Amilyn.”

Amilyn laughed. “Just when it comes to you. I’m really glad you’re happy.”

They were quiet for a few minutes, and then Leia asked, “how long do you think you’ll be here?”

“Not long. Got a lot of Imperials left to kill. Don’t worry, I’ll come back for your wedding.”

“My what?”

“You heard me! You should go back to Endor for it; It sounds like your little friends down there throw a hell of a party.”

“You’re crazy.” Nothing at all had been said about a wedding.

“We’ll see,” said Amilyn, smiling mysteriously.


	43. Home One

She finally got it together enough to talk to Luke the next day, finding him in his quarters at the end of the day.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi.” He looked around. “Where’s Han?”

She felt her cheeks warming. “I know, I’m sorry, I’ve been a nightmare lately.” He laughed. “You remember back on Hoth, you told me that you wished we’d just get together because we were making everyone crazy?” He nodded. “So is this better or worse?”

“Well, you’re not screaming at each other all the time,” he said. “So that’s an improvement. On the other hand, I never see either of you. But I’m really glad you’re happy, and also: I told you so.”

She laughed. “Yes, you did.” She sat down next to him and he scooted over to make room. She sighed. “I’m sorry, Luke. I’ve really wanted to ask you about— about everything. I just— it’s so hard to think about.” Her eyes filled with tears. “It’s easier, you know. To avoid it.”

“I know,” he said. “I felt the same way when I first found out.”

She hugged her knees into her chest. “How do you know?” she asked. “About— about him?”

“He told me.”

“He… _ told _ you?”

“On Bespin. I didn’t believe him at first. He must have known as soon as he found out my name. He really was Anakin Skywalker, before. He could have found me any time he wanted, if he’d known about me. He didn’t know about you at all. I didn’t either.”

“But he could have been lying,” she said. “He wanted you to join up with him, right?”

“I told you about the Jedi Master I trained with, remember?”

She nodded.

“He confirmed it. He was there when we were born. So was Obi-Wan, and Senator Organa.”

Her father. Her heart twisted in pain. He had been there when she was born. He had known who she really was, and he had kept it from her. She started to cry.

Luke was looking at her as if from very far away. “I’m sorry, Leia. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m glad you told me. I just wish—” She thought about her parents. About her home, which was gone forever. “I don’t know if I can explain it. I miss my mom and dad _ so much_. I don’t even really think about it, it’s just always there. Knowing I’ll never see them again. That I never got to say goodbye. And to find out they were keeping such a huge secret from me… I don’t know how to forgive them for it, and I don’t want to be angry with them, because they’re dead and it’s my fault.” She was really crying now.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, gently.

“It is,” she said. “Because I got caught. If I hadn’t gotten caught… but I did. I got caught and they killed my whole planet, and I’ve been carrying that around with me for four years and I’ll be carrying it for the rest of my life.” She had never said this out loud before. “I thought when we finally beat them, I’d feel better, but _ I don’t_. And now you’re telling me that the person who caught me and tortured me and killed my family was my _ real father?” _ She thought she was going to scream. It wasn’t fair. She felt like she was standing back on the command deck of the Death Star, watching her beautiful home through the window and hearing Tarkin give the order. _ You may fire when ready. _

Luke put his arms around her and let her cry. She felt a little better afterward, but not much.

“I hate it,” she said, wiping her face. “I’m so angry at my dad, Luke. How could he take one of us and not the other? We should have been together.”

“I’m sure he had a good reason,” said Luke. “Everything I’ve ever heard about him is that he was a good man.”

“He was,” she whispered. “There wasn’t anything about it, in Kenobi’s journals?” 

He shook his head. "The journals don't have anything about you at all."

There was quiet, for a while, and then she asked the other thing she wanted to know. “Who was our mother?” The woman whose memory she had occasionally felt as a soft, blurred impression, even though she knew she had been too young to have formed real memories of her. Maybe it was the Force that had let her hold on to those images.

“Obi-Wan wrote about her a little,” said Luke. “Do you want to read them?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe. What did he say about her?”

“I think she was a lot like you,” said Luke. “She was the queen of a place called Naboo. Have you ever heard of it?”

“Naboo?” She sat up a little more. “I’ve been there. She was the queen?” The queen of Naboo was not a hereditary position, like on Alderaan. They were young women, teenagers really, elected to leadership for a fixed term. She had met one of them once, when she was sixteen. Dalné; an intelligent girl her own age. She had liked Dalné very much, although she’d only seen her once. They would have become good friends, she thought, but her parents had been so furious when they found out she went to the Naboo system that she’d never dared to get in touch with Dalné again. She had thought her parents were angry just because Naboo was the Emperor’s homeworld and they were being overprotective. Now she knew there was more to it. Maybe they feared someone would recognize her. Maybe she looked like that queen from so long ago. 

Luke nodded. “And then she joined the Senate, later, right before the Clone Wars. I think she and your father were good friends there. They worked together a lot. But people were always trying to kill her.”

Leia smiled sadly. Maybe she did have a few things in common with her birth mother.

“What else?” she asked.

“Ben didn’t have that much to say about her. I don’t know if he knew her that well. But he said she was very beautiful — that makes sense, I bet she looked like you — and very intelligent and brave. And good at her job. She fought really hard, with your father and a few others, to keep the Republic going. He liked her a lot, admired her. I think he might have been a tiny bit in love with her himself, but that’s just speculation. Mostly he wrote about our fa— about Anakin. But it sounds like they were in love. Ben said they got married in secret. Jedi weren’t supposed to get married or have children, which is weird when you think about it, since the Force runs in families. What’s Naboo like?”

“It’s very pretty,” she said. “Well, I only went to one of the moons, before the war. But I went to the planet right after Yavin. There were Alderaanians there. I was only there for a minute. It’s beautiful. Like Alderaan was, except the cities are smaller. It’s not in the Core.” She felt herself on the verge of tears again. How were there any left in her body? She remembered how much she used to hate crying. It seemed like she did it all the time now. Amilyn would say that was a good thing, and maybe it was.

“We should go there,” she said. “When the war is over.” She wondered if Dalné were still alive. “If she was the queen, there’ll be lots of records about her.” And pictures, she thought. We can see if I do look like her.


	44. Epilogue

The Emperor was dead, but that didn’t mean the war was over. Still, from early on it was clear that the Empire was losing. Admirals and moffs were jockeying for positions of power, hoping to replace the Emperor, which made them easy targets for the Alliance fleet, and then they started fighting and killing each other, which made things even easier. The lower ranks of the Imperial forces, seeing the writing on the wall, started defecting or deserting by the thousands.

Only a few months in, the Alliance officially started calling itself the New Republic. A year after the battle of Endor, the remaining Imperial forces surrendered. There was still mopping up to do, but the greater portion of the war that Leia had been fighting for her entire adult life was over.

Her work was just beginning. Mon Mothma had warned her that this was a critical point. Many revolutions failed to implement a real government, or replaced it with something just as bad as the one they’d overthrown. “The skills it takes to win a war are not the same skills it takes to establish peace,” she said.

There were trials for the major players; the high and mid ranking officials, although there were complaints from some, who thought that trials seemed unnecessary and they should just be shot. The political leadership, Leia included, stood firm on this point. Summary executions were how the Empire had done things. The New Republic was a democracy, and democracies held fair trials.

Anyway, this way, there would be a record of the evidence presented at the trial. The atrocities would be recorded. It would be remembered.

There was more that should be remembered, though, thought Leia. Not just the biggest war crimes, but the personal stories. The things that people had done, and the things that had been done to them. So she came up with a proposal for a commission that would record those stories. “We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t,” she said, thinking of the unconscious stormtrooper she had shot in the back of the head, and remembering what SL-9907 had told her after he surrendered. _ You got my cousin out. If you hadn’t, he would have ended up like me_. “We have to find a way to live with it, and to move forward. We can’t just stand here hating each other forever.”

It was a shocking proposal from the woman who had more reason to hate the Empire than almost anyone else in the galaxy. But hate wouldn’t bring Alderaan back. It wouldn’t give her back her father and her mother and all the people she’d loved that they’d taken from her. All it would do was eat her alive. 

It wasn’t about forgiveness. She knew that Luke had forgiven his father, and she had no intention of doing the same. She didn’t think she could even if she wanted to. His crimes had been against the galaxy, not just against her. But continuing to nurse her hatred for him would accomplish nothing positive, so she made a decision to focus on the future. 

Luke said that the Emperor had nearly killed him, that Vader had intervened and saved his life by killing his master. So there had been something human inside him, at the end. She wasn’t sure what to do with that knowledge, but at least her brother was alive, and they were together.

She still dreamed about Alderaan every night. She would for the rest of her life, she knew. And it took her a long time to stop being angry with her father for separating her from Luke when they were babies. She knew in her heart that he had believed it to be the right thing, and maybe it was. Sometimes there were no good options. She missed him, and she missed her mother, and somehow that pain never seemed to ease, no matter how much time went by.

She threw herself into her work, as she had always done. Not making war anymore, but building peace. It was harder, in many ways, but she was good at it.

And there was Han. They did get married, as Amilyn had said they would, and Amilyn did come back for the wedding, as she had promised. It was a small affair, but all the people that mattered most were there: Amilyn, Luke, Chewie, and Lando. And Mon Mothma came, despite being the busiest person in the galaxy, because Leia was as close as she’d ever had to a daughter of her own. 

“Doesn’t this all feel a bit, I don’t know, happily-ever-after?” Leia asked her new husband. “Stuff like that doesn’t really happen.”

He kissed her on the forehead. “Don’t worry, Princess. We have terrible luck; something bad will probably happen soon.”

“I hate it when you tell me not to worry,” she said, scowling.

He kissed her again. “I know.”


End file.
